Derek McDowell (Labour)

I broadly welcome this Bill, though with reservations. Senator Higgins noted that the Minister of State's speech does not explicitly refer to decentralisation. It is interesting that his speech in the Dáil did so, at least initially. He has kicked off a lengthy debate about decentralisation in the other House which he wants to avoid in this House. He has not managed to succeed in that so far and I will not help him.

An explicit aim of the Bill is to facilitate recruitment at local level and therefore presumably to staff offices in the 53 different locations set out by the Minister for Finance last December in the decentralisation programme announced in the budget. That is worrying with regard to a range of policy issues, some of which I will mention.

In response to Senator Mansergh's emotional intervention on behalf of provincial Ireland, I regret we have not had enough of the opposite. I regret there have not been enough people who represent Dublin constituencies, or aspire to represent Dublin constituencies, speaking up for our city. I understand perfectly why Deputies and Senators from rural areas want to bring jobs from Dublin down the country. This is partly because people from Dublin do not want to go there and why should they? Many people have established lifestyles in Dublin, including jobs, spouses' jobs, mortgages, houses and schools for their children, but they also have a level of choice in their lifestyle which they simply would not have in provincial Ireland. Dublin offers people a choice of where their children go to school, what they do in their leisure time and whether they wish to go to the theatre, cinema or whatever, compared to many of these God awful places down the country where all one has is a choice of dingy pubs.