Seán Conlan (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

On Tuesday, 15 March, it came to my attention that, under the local office reorganisation plan, the departmental offices at Ballybay, Birr, Monaghan town, Mullingar and Portlaoise were to close from 20 May 2011. Regional offices are to be established within the next two months in Cavan town, Naas and Tullamore. In the meantime, the personnel division along with the local office line managers will make arrangements to visit the local office. This decision needs to be reviewed. I have studied the issue and I have examined when the decision was made. I believe it was made in July 2009 by the previous Minister but I would like this to be confirmed. However, it needs to be reviewed for a number of reasons. The terms of reference for the original reconfiguration need to be examined and a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed move needs to be conducted. It is my understanding the office will be closed to the public but the staff will remain in the office and, therefore, there is no saving in closing the public office.

The facility benefits the State in that the veterinarians based in Ballybay provide a disease control service along the Border and for every farmer in County Monaghan. People may not realise that the distance between north and south Monaghan and Cavan town is approximately 50 miles. A cost-benefit analysis is needed because the veterinarians operating out of Ballybay have to drive to Cavan in the morning, clock in, return to Ballybay to carry out the tests and then drive back to Cavan in the evening. They will incur substantial travel expenses. The Ballybay office is unique because the export mart is located beside it. Monaghan exports more live cattle and poultry than any other county in the Republic.

Cost is a major issue. What cost a brucellosis free State for the farming community? The DVO in Ballybay is seven miles from the Border and Keady in County Armagh where there is a brucellosis problem. I am not sure people in the Republic know this but the veterinarians in the Ballybay DVO are fully aware that many farmers along the border between counties Monaghan and Armagh own farms on both sides of the Border and some farms straddle the Border. They can keep a close eye on cattle movements along the Border and that is why we have our disease free status.

I do not see any rationale for moving the frontier back towards Cavan town, which is many miles removed from the Border. Monaghan has the longest border with Northern Ireland of any county in the Republic. There is an opportunity to review this decision. It should be reviewed and I want to get to the bottom of why the decision was made in the first place. That is why the terms of reference for the original reconfiguration need to be examined. Offices will be located in Cavan town, Naas and Tullamore and I do not understand the rationale behind these locations, especially in a regional context.

I refer to the all-Ireland disease free status. Ballybay is centrally placed, as it is surrounded by counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh. If we want to achieve this status, the town would provide a centrally placed office from which veterinarians could operate. If we could get rid of the partitionist mindset in the long term and start to consider this issue in an all-Ireland context, Ballybay would be a centrally placed office in which to have the veterinarians situated. The reason they have not been moved is that there is no physical space for them in the Cavan office. There would have to be substantial capital investment to house them there. Can we afford as a nation to spend this money when an office is available in Ballybay? The files stored in Ballybay were taken to Sligo last October. It makes no sense to store files in Sligo for an office that is supposed to be located in Cavan when they were perfectly well contained in the Ballybay office.

I would like the decision to be reviewed and the terms of reference of the reconfiguration to be examined again. The decision should not be implemented. I understand the previous Minister made the decision and I would like clarification in this regard as well.

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