Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

What if the husband has a senior position within the public service and his wife is working in a bank, and both salaries are needed to pay a mortgage? How can the Minister reach some compromise that will make the move acceptable to both of them? The same applies in regard to a civil servant married to a teacher. How can she be guaranteed a job in the local secondary, community or vocational school in, say, Claremorris, County Mayo?

The figures illustrate the reality that the vast majority of public servants do not want to move because of the manner in which this is being handled. They live in Dublin. They are settled in Dublin. They have a whole social network in Dublin. They own houses and they have mortgages. They have children attending primary and secondary school and third level colleges.

Has the Minister not listened, for example, to the reaction of the plethora of his own defeated local authority candidates who went on the Joe Duffy radio programme on two successive days and emphasised, particularly in Dublin, that the negative factor that impacted on the Government's performance was the fact that there was no consultation regarding decentralisation and that people would be dislodged willy-nilly?

The Minister has failed to appreciate that we are not talking about dislodging 10,000 public servants. We are talking about dislodging 40,000 people, between spouses and children. I am all for decentralisation. It is a great idea but this has been bungled. It is too much, too soon, and it is unplanned. I want the scheme to work properly but it has not been planned. It was an election rabbit that, from the point of view of the Government, has had more negatives than positives.

The justification for this Bill is in the first six or seven lines, namely, to support the Government's programme of decentralisation. It is putting the cart before the horse.