Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I would like to return to the net cost. The Taoiseach indicated the estimated cost of the decentralisation process when it was announced was originally put at €900 million plus. The Government made a decision that it was going to put the decentralisation process on hold — in effect end it — and review it again in 2011. The statement issued by the Government at the time said that this was being done for budgetary considerations. The problem I have with this — I ask the Taoiseach to help us out with it — is that when both Deputy Kenny and I ask him questions about the costs, specific questions about the costs of the acquisition of property, fitting out, rental costs and so on, he replies in terms which suggest that the State has been doing very well financially out of the decentralisation process, that because all this property is being acquired in the areas to which civil servants are to be decentralised and properties elsewhere are being released, this has created a net gain for the State. Is there or is there not a net cost or has there been a net cost to the decentralisation process to date? Can the Taoiseach tell the House what that net cost is because this does not add up? If money is being made on decentralisation, why would the Government cancel it for budgetary reasons? What is the net cost?

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