Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy will appreciate that the detail of that would be best put to the line Minister concerned in terms of the Department of public service but I will try to answer the questions as best I can from my own prior experience and the information available to me.

On the question of numbers, and this was the point I was trying to make to Deputy Kenny, up to September 2008 over 13,000 civil and public servants had applied to the central applications facility to relocate under the programme and over 7,000 of those were Dublin based applicants. Given the nature of the programme and the timescales involved, individual circumstances are open to change and the application status may change as a result. It is not possible to calculate at this stage how many of the decentralising posts to be moved would be filled by people originally from Dublin.

The Deputy mentioned some decentralisation where a certain number of the total complement were from Dublin. Those people came from other Departments and locations and those other locations created vacancies, some of which may be taken up by Dublin based applicants who wish to move to whatever location was subsequently providing a vacancy as a result of the people referred to by the Deputy moving to the locations he mentioned. Therefore, I cannot give the Deputy the full picture. He referred to six or seven people who came to one place out of a total complement of approximately 53 and therefore the 48 would have come from various other locations, some of which would have been filled by Dublin based applicants also. That is the way it works.

The Deputy must recognise that everyone in the service has an entitlement to apply for relocation from whatever part of the country if they so wish but the ultimate objective would be that having decentralised, and when this process is complete, the numbers who would otherwise have been working in centralised offices will be reduced by the number in the decentralised offices. While people are being accommodated to relocate, because it is a voluntary programme and everyone has an equal entitlement, the ultimate point is that the net number working in the civil and public service within Dublin will be reduced by the overall number in due course. That is the way the process will work and it is only logical and fair to point that out.

Regarding the question on the property issue, which I have outlined, some of the people who are relocating from Dublin would also be coming from rented accommodation within Dublin. Not all of the accommodation in Dublin is owned. In many cases, when one moves from rental accommodation, given Dublin property prices and prices in country areas, one is making a saving if one moves to some rental accommodation in a country area. I would enter that caveat in the first instance.

Approximately €17 million has been spent to date on the costs of renting and fitting out properties in advance party locations. Staff in such locations will remain in place or move to permanent accommodation under the programme. Of that €17 million, approximately €4 million has been spent to date by the Office of Public Works on the cost of renting and fitting out of mainly Civil Service properties in advance party locations where permanent accommodation has been deferred pending the review in 2011. Therefore, €13 million of the €17 million is in respect of rental accommodation, of which permanent accommodation will be provided in the course of the next few years, and people will move to that. A total of €4 million of the €17 million is in respect of people who are in rental accommodation about whom no arrangements for permanent accommodation have yet been made.

The overall point I am making on the property issue is that €250 million is expended in terms of acquiring properties. The total spend by the OPW, which is also involved in the building and contracting of the buildings as well, is €250 million gross up to the end of September 2008. In respect of property disposed of, it has received €355.9 million. It has also provided another €75 million worth of property to the affordable homes partnership, which can be put to the value of the €355.9 million, bringing the figure up to €430 million. It has estimated a further €125 million as the minimum value for joint venture redevelopment schemes it has agreed. This is for enhancing the value of some of the locations vacated as a result of the decentralisation programme.

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