Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I agree with the Senator. In order to be consistent with what was said 12 or 18 months ago, the starting point should be the gateway and hub towns. It is surprising that some of those towns have been left out of this programme.

While the concept of decentralisation is positive and there are thousands of civil servants who would be interested in moving to provincial locations, there is a difficulty in matching the people to the moves. Much work is required if what the Minister said on 3 December is to turn out to be real. I wish the Minister of State well in his endeavours and ask him to answer my query about Mitchelstown. I ask him not to waste his time telling me about jobs from other sections of Bus Éireann. The Minister made a promise which was repeated locally as late as last Friday night in the presence of the Taoiseach by the Government representative for Mitchelstown, that the headquarters of Bus Éireann would be moving to Mitchelstown and would be providing 200 jobs.