Derek McDowell (Labour)

People do not choose to go to many of the 53 towns and villages listed by the Minister of State so the Government has decided as a matter of policy to relocate civil servants to these places to get more votes. While I understand why it is doing so, I am deeply opposed to it.

As a Dubliner, I have no hesitation saying I understand why people like living here. I do not think there is anything wrong with living here or having Civil Service jobs here. I understand why people from the country want to stay here. Perhaps too little of that argument has been made by those of us who represent Dublin constituencies. Those on the Government benches will be aware that many civil servants living in Dublin feel under-represented, or not represented, by what is being said on the issue in these Houses in recent months by those of us on the Opposition benches genuflecting towards decentralisation and giving way to our rural colleagues. These people want us to say that they are entitled to their choice of lifestyle and to maintain their jobs where they now have them. I would like to raise my voice in support of these people who do not feel they are being properly represented in the debate.

It is important to address the issue at a policy level. There are real difficulties for the decision-making process in what is being proposed. I do not have a problem with relocating an administrative office down the country, wherever it might be, assuming that the IT connections and communications generally are good. However, there are problems for the decision making process. There is a need for people making decisions to talk to each other not just over the telephone or by e-mail. There is a need for senior policy makers to be in constant contact with people within their own Department, or people within their section of the Department. There is also a need for senior civil servants to be in constant touch with people at a similar level in other Departments. This inevitably will be weakened if different Departments or different parts of different Departments are located in different parts of the country.

There is a particular problem in regard to issues relating to different Departments, where different Ministers have responsibility for dealing with, for example, children. We still have not got to grips with this problem. It is 15 years since a Minister of State with responsibility for children was first appointed and there are still teething difficulties in trying to co-ordinate the activities of the three or four different Departments dealing with children's issues. It is not rocket science to project that the problem will get worse in circumstances where individual policy makers, the senior civil servants who deal with the issue, are located in different parts of the country.

Looking benignly at the issue, in many cases it might not make a huge difference if decision makers or senior civil servants in part of a Department are close to the Minister and these Houses and another part of the Department is down the country. Clearly it will make a difference in some areas and the most obvious one is where people have specialised technical skills, which must be located in one place. If we are to take the Government at face value and assume this process will be voluntary, presumably some people with specialised technical skills, who are located in an office in Dublin, will be relocated in Dublin where their technical skills will be lost, if they choose not to go down the country. Presumably it would then be necessary to recruit people with these specialised technical skills who are willing to go down the country. To use Senator Quinn's phrase, this will inevitably involve a loss of institutional memory and a loss of skill. It would also involve unnecessary costs and duplication, which we could do without.

One must wonder whether it is intended to carry out the process in a voluntary fashion. It was clear until a few weeks ago that the Government intended to put the maximum pressure to move on civil servants. I may be misreading the signs, but its willingness to put pressure on civil servants has been diminished somewhat by the experience on the doorsteps over the past couple of months. The result of this may be a much more limited programme, which may not be a bad thing. If we can get a significant group of people from agencies and Departments, which will not involve a significant loss of expertise, to move down the country on a genuinely voluntary basis, no one will raise their voice in opposition. However, if we proceed to transfer all the agencies and Departments to the 53 different locations, the outcome inevitably will be chaotic.

It is a little ironic that this measure is being introduced at a time when it is Government policy to restrict or eliminate recruitment to the Civil Service. It was explicitly stated by the Minister for Finance that he wanted to reduce the numbers in the Civil Service. In that context, it is ironic that a whole new method of recruitment into the Civil Service is being introduced. Central to this is the maintenance of probity, fairness and independence within the Civil Service. If one takes the Bill and the Minister's statements here and in the other House at face value, one would say that is fair enough. However, there are some worrying elements, which the Minister of State has tried to address by way of amendment in at least one area. This relates to delegation and whomever is ultimately responsible for recruitment. If a particular Department or agency gets a licence, it will be entitled to delegate to a private recruitment agency. Most of them will do so because Departments which currently do not recruit are unlikely to set up new recruitment sections.

The constraints and standards set out in the regulation depend on the codes of practice, which are intended to be implemented by the commission. What we are getting now is different from when one agency was responsible for all the recruitment and oversaw the independence that guaranteed probity. We will now have someone regulating a licence holder who will, in turn, delegate to a private recruitment agency. I appreciate what the Minister of State has done in terms of the amendment, but I am not persuaded if he makes the decentralisation argument and says this is being done in Gort, Claremorris or wherever——