Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

The idea of the early deployment in May is a good one from the taxpayers' point of view. This is an enormous aid programme which is going through its biggest ever expansion in the history of the State. It is imperative that staff be deployed there early to ease the transition involved. Even in my own, very modest, experience of the private sector, prior to my role in politics, I often worked for companies that moved office premises. None of the measures that are now being taken to move staff from one location to another was ever taken in the big private sector companies I worked for over the years. We are taking every precaution to ensure there will be minimum disruption to the service our partner countries expect from an aid programme that has the strong international reputation ours has. The point of the deployment is to ensure there is not a chaotic transition to Limerick, to see that there is a proper, smooth delivery of the public administration service given by civil servants in Irish Aid. I think it is right to rent a separate office prior to the full offices being made available and I confirm that this is the major expense incurred by decentralisation. Other costs, including the need to retrain staff, come within the Department's existing training budget of 4%. The cost is necessary and justified to make sure decentralisation works and is neither a token gesture nor an inappropriately managed process. I fully defend how this money is being spent.

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