Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I will address the issues raised on behalf of the Minister of the Transport, and the Irish Coast Guard is relevant to his Department. I am pleased to confirm that the decentralisation of 50 staff from the Department of Transport and the Road Safety Authority, RSA, to Loughrea was among the priority moves in the Government's decentralisation programme and it is complete. With regard to RSA staff moving to Ballina, the number involved increased from 67 — that is, the number of staff originally located there — to 129. The majority of the additional 62 posts were secured from the Ballina central applications facility. Ballina, as an existing decentralised location, was an option for candidates under the current programme. The remainder of staff were secured from a mixture of open recruitment and internal promotional competitions.

The Minister for Transport's recent decision to move the maritime safety directorate, the Irish Coast Guard, technical and administrative, and the marine survey office, technical and administrative, to Drogheda is likely to lead to an increase in the numbers of posts transferring there over and above the original 37 planned. The central applications facility has resulted in a very positive response from applicants for this location. While neither the total numbers nor grades has been identified, the Minister for Transport is confident that finalising the actual moves will not present an insurmountable problem.

The immediate priority is to finalise a suitable location and construction of a premises. This work is being undertaken by the Office of Public Works. Once a premises is available, I expect there will be no delay in completing the decentralisation process. As per the Government decision, all staff decentralising to Drogheda will do so on a voluntary basis. Proposals to decentralise the National Roads Authority and the Railway Safety Commission to Ballinasloe, Bus Éireann to Mitchelstown and the Irish Aviation Authority to Shannon are less advanced. The bodies involved were not identified by the decentralisation implementation group as early movers.

Each of the agencies has reported that few staff have expressed an interest in moving to the decentralised locations. This creates particular difficulties as many of the staff involved are in specialist posts. In addition, in the case of Bus Éireann, the total number of staff located in its headquarters is 80, while the decentralisation decision calls for 200 posts to move. Updated implementation plans have been requested from the agencies and these are expected to show progress on their individual moves. The matter of providing additional State jobs in any location is subject to Department of Finance approval within Government policy.

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