Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We must hope that the new national plan to which the Minister referred is better implemented than its predecessor. The capital is under huge pressure in areas such as water, housing and transport. Housing is beyond the reach of most low and middle-income civil servants. There are opportunities to relocate. Even if the Minister will not relocate additional Departments, there are further opportunities within the Departments which have been decentralised and which have been welcomed and embraced by people in the midlands, especially in Laois and Offaly.

For example, someone ought to look at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. While it may not relate strictly to decentralisation, every little thing in planning must be rubber-stamped in the Custom House, even for applications regarding the porches of houses or the kinds of covers that may be put over the tops of house windows. Some of that work needs to be decentralised to local government. That is one area in which we could move civil servants out of central government and back into city halls.

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