Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

Indeed. The people in question were recruited under the old system, which has stood the test of time. The Government plans to change the entire system, however.

The Bill's explanatory memorandum mentions decentralisation, but the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, did not refer to it in his speech. His failure to refer to the decentralisation programme represents an acknowledgement that it is doubtful that it will happen at all. The programme will not proceed not because it is a bad thing, but because of the ham-fisted and gauche manner in which it was announced and handled. When the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, announced in his budget four years ago that the Government intended to pursue a programme of decentralisation, he said that every public servant whose job was capable of being decentralised would be decentralised. The announcement was welcomed, particularly by Fine Gael. Nothing happened for some time, however, despite repeated queries from my party and others. The rabbit was finally plucked from the hat in the run-up to the European and local elections, when it was announced that over 10,000 jobs would be relocated in over 50 locations.

A glaring deficiency in the decentralisation programme, which was pointed out last year by Fine Gael, is that many of the places chosen for decentralisation were not designated as hubs or gateways in the national spatial strategy. There was understandable elation in the 53 locations that were chosen, two of which, Claremorris and Knock Airport, are within minutes of my home. Secure public service jobs will bring considerable benefits to the economies of such regions. Despite the Minister for Finance's reassurances and assertions, it is obvious the decentralisation timetable cannot be met.

In his rush to provide political kudos for his party and its public representatives in the Dáil and Seanad and at local government level, the Minister has overlooked a number of factors. First, from the point of view of the standard and quality of public service, we simply cannot dislodge 10,000 public servants from their centrally located Dublin offices and transplant them within a pressurised timeframe to 53 disparate locations without adversely affecting the efficient delivery of the service. Second, the long-sought interaction, cohesion and overlap among what were, until now, straitjacketed and singly focused Departments will be set back years. The failure of the Minister to enter into negotiations with the various Civil Service representative bodies in advance of the announcement has meant that the proposal is doomed to failure.

I welcome, at least in regard to this measure, the fact that the Minister and his Department had the courtesy to enter into dialogue with the public service unions and get their clearance on this matter. It is incomprehensible, however, in terms of decentralisation, that any Minister for Finance could not have foreseen the public service furore that would ensue. First, there is the overwhelming resistance on the part of the vast majority of the public service to being shunted to various parts of the country to which they do not want to go or with which they have no association. Second, the Minister is talking about moving people from a Department in which they have worked and for which they have been trained for 20 to 25 years to entirely new Departments with which they are not familiar. Third, there are the human factors. For example, if a husband is working in one Department and his spouse or partner is working in another Department, how can they both be accommodated within a new relocated Department, that is if they want to move in the first place?