Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House for this very important debate. Apart from the waste of time in the past ten minutes, this is a very important debate. I hope we can concentrate on the main issues at hand. I listened carefully to the speech made by the Minister of State. Unfortunately he has not addressed our major concern, which is the decline in the number of decentralised posts from 10,000 to 3,500 and what will happen to the missing numbers. We now have a decentralisation programme, which has as its target the relocation of no more than 3,500 civil servants. It is time to stop pretending that any more than that number will be relocated.

I have read the implementation report published last week and the press release issued by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen. The Minister in that statement, and the Minister of State today, have been quite clear in what they say. However, let us remember our new starting point. Since last week we now have a decentralisation programme for 3,500 civil servants.