Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann——

—recognises that each and every region must have, and must be encouraged to have, a role in sustaining our national prosperity and progress and believes that balanced regional development is essential in this regard;

—congratulates the Government for the commitment it continues to show in implementing the national development plan and bringing forward the national spatial strategy;

—welcomes the announcement made by the Minister for Finance in budget 2004 of the Government's decentralisation programme, which amounts to one of the biggest changes and reforms in the history of the State, involving over 10,000 public servants moving out of Dublin to 53 centres in 25 counties around the country;

—accepts that the locations which have been selected take full account of the national spatial strategy, the existence of good transport links — by road, rail and-or air — and the location of existing decentralised offices;

—notes that, for the first time ever, decentralisation will involve the transfer of complete Departments — including their Ministers and senior management — to provincial locations with a total of eight Departments and the Office of Public Works moving their headquarters from Dublin to provincial locations;

—acknowledges all Departments and Offices will be participating in the programme, that the programme will be implemented through the transfer of staff on a voluntary basis and that there will be no redundancies and, as on previous occasions, the payment of removal or relocation expenses will not arise;

—fully supports this radical decentralisation programme as good for Dublin, good for the rest of the country and a statement of confidence in provincial Ireland while also affirming that the programme will make better use of our resources, of our infrastructure and especially of our most valuable resource of all — our people;

—maintains too that decentralisation offers considerable benefits for the Departments involved, the communities to which they will be relocated, the staff that will transfer and the country as a whole;

—emphasises that the parties in Government have a proud record in the delivery of decentralisation and can take credit for the fact the thousands of civil servants are already working and living around the country; and

—supports fully the establishment of an implementation committee to drive forward implementation of the current programme with the chair of the committee reporting to a Cabinet sub-committee.

I wish to share my time with Senator Daly.