Brendan Daly (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and compliment him on a constructive and forward looking approach to this issue, which has been the subject of much discussion over many years.

I am surprised at the remarks made by Senator Higgins. The former Minister for Finance, Deputy John Bruton, scrapped a major programme of decentralisation that had been proposed by a previous Government. He put up for sale the sites that had been bought in rural areas, including a site in Ennis. After some representations and campaigning, the then Minister did not proceed with the sale of the site and Government offices were relocated to Ennis ten years later. In view of this, the Fine Gael Party can claim no credit on the issue because when in government, it put a stop to the first major scheme of decentralisation undertaken. While I am not sure if he was a Member of the Dáil at the time, Senator Higgins should know about what happened because his colleagues were in office.

Decentralisation has been discussed for many years and it has been an issue which has excited communities, local organisations, councils, politicians and developers. For many years, we have seen young people lining up to take the bus to Dublin on Sundays and returning to spend weekends at home with their families. It is far more realistic and suitable to relocate their offices from Dublin.

There was a campaign under way in Ennis for many years which eventually saw the location there, under a tripartite arrangement with Limerick and Nenagh, of an office of the Revenue Commissioners. In excess of 1,000 personnel were transferred to Ennis while the tripartite arrangement made it possible to relocate a substantial number of positions overall because doing so was important in terms of being able to offer promotion and advancement prospects within the service. No one would wish to see offices relocated if it was to be to the detriment of those employed in them. In this case, three towns combined to allow a major slice of a State organisation to decentralise and to facilitate their own development.