Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this important issue. Rural Ireland requires the services of various Departments and, from a rural perspective, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food offices have been an absolute requirement for the dispersed farming and rural community. A Government decision was taken in line with budgetary and economic matters to control spending in that Department, which I can understand. However, at the time an effort was made to undermine to some extent the work that is carried out in those offices. Some sought to suggest that much of the work could be dealt with over the telephone or on the Internet. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is an absolute requirement that a number of satellite or part-time offices be established in those counties affected by the closure of their central district veterinary office. In the case of County Clare, a workable solution would be to have a satellite or temporary office within the confines of Ennis Mart, a location where farmers congregate on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This would provide an adequate and appropriate location for the services of the Department, especially in regard to veterinary matters, and would ensure that farmers had easy access to those services. In recent weeks farmers have found considerable difficulty in getting through the office in Limerick, now the designated office for County Clare farmers, despite their consistent efforts to reach or make contact with that office by telephone. This is creating great levels of frustration, especially for those farmers who require services for getting permits to have diseased animals slaughtered and many other regular interactions they would have with Department offices.

The suggestion that much of this business is transacted now over the Internet is a fallacy. Some larger farmers may have business of a kind that enables them to conduct it over the Internet but for the vast majority, especially smaller farmers, of whom there are many in County Clare, it is not acceptable to suggest they can transact their business in this way.

I appeal to the Minister of State to give serious consideration to this. I do not believe there would be any - or at least, not many - additional costs associated with having a member of departmental personnel located on a site within the mart complex in Ennis a number of days a week. There would be no increase in staff complement arising from such a decision and it would show a very strong commitment by the Department to service the farming community.

It is important this be dealt with now because there is a considerable amount of hardship as a result of the inability of some to make telephone contact with the Department. In addition, it is a complex journey to reach the office in Limerick, particularly from the north and west of the county. For that reason, I appeal again to the Minister of State to review this matter at the earliest opportunity. I do not ask him to incur any additional expense on behalf of the Department but to utilise existing services in an efficient manner that provides the best available service to the farming community.

Seán Connick (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank Deputy Timmy Dooley for raising this matter with me. On 15 July last year, the Government approved a plan for a reorganisation of my Department's local office network. The plan involves reducing, from 57 to 16, the number of offices from which my Department will operate district veterinary, forestry and agricultural environment and structures support services. To this end nine new regional offices have been established at Castlebar, Drumshanbo, Enniscorthy, Navan, Limerick, Roscommon town, Tipperary town, Tralee and Waterford city. Seven further new regional offices are soon to be established at Cavan, Clonakilty, Fermoy, Galway, Naas, Raphoe and Tullamore. More than half of the 41 local offices planned to close have closed to the public and the remainder are to close shortly.

The local office network reorganisation plan is an important phase in the ongoing overall reorganisation of my Department, which has seen staff numbers in my Department reduced by over 750 including the transfer of approximately 400 staff to other Departments, mainly the Department of Justice and Law Reform, for the operation of the PULSE system in Castlebar, and local offices of the Department of Social Protection and other Departments. In addition, some 600 staff were redeployed internally to new and expanding work areas including the single payment scheme and the implementation of new environmental, food safety and animal health controls required by the EU. These savings reflect changes in my Department's work practices, improved business processes, the greater use of computerisation and the wind up of livestock offices and takes account of the changes arising from CAP reform, the continued implementation of the Department's decentralisation plan, the findings of the organisational review programme and the objectives set out in the Government's transforming public services programme.

Internal reviews of my Department's operations have highlighted changes in the workload of the local office network arising from significant decreases in the incidence of animal diseases; CAP reform giving rise to changes in the delivery of schemes and services; investment in information technology, especially in the areas of animal health and welfare, customer management, animal movement identification and themanagement of field inspections; adjustments to schemes and programmes; reduced footfall in local offices; and advances in the broader areas of transport and communications.

Bearing these changes in mind the aim of the local office network reorganisation is to rationalise the overall number of locations across the country to facilitate the more efficient management of schemes, services and disease levels. Providing satellite agriculture offices on any basis outside of the 16 new regional offices does not feature in the reorganisation process.

I am confident that the 16 chosen locations for the new regional offices will provide an improved customer service in all regions of the country while at the same time reducing the cost of delivering the services provided for the Department's many customers and stakeholders. In addition, the new regional structure will facilitate the retention of the appropriate number of staff required in each location, while at the same time maintaining a very high quality of services across the country.

This decision, when fully implemented, will result in financial savings in the Department's running costs of some €30 million annually, and the reduction of over 400 staff. By rationalising our local office network we can improve services to our clients by concentrating the remaining staff resources of approximately 1,000 people at the newly developed centres. This initiative is part of a continual process of modernisation of the Department. The various staff associations have been consulted in relation to the redeployment of staff within the Department and to other Departments.

I wish to express my appreciation to the staff in our local offices for their contribution to the work of the Department over the years and to their continued commitment to providing a quality service to our stakeholders. I would also like to assure this House and our key stakeholders of my continued commitment to providing an exemplary support service across all areas of Departmental activities and I strongly believe that this will be best delivered through the new regional office structure now being implemented.