John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am surprised he is satisfied given the debate we had on the roll-out of decentralisation in the Chamber after the announcement of budget 2004. I can safely say that in my time in politics, I have never seen a more arrogant attempt by the Government to con the population than the decentralisation programme.

I am forthright in my commitment to the ideal of decentralisation. Fine Gael is fully supportive of the objective. The Minister of State struck the nail on the head when he stated the programme is popular, involving over 10,600 civil and public servants who want to move from Dublin or their existing provincial location. Moving from one's existing provincial location is not decentralisation in any form. A number of public servants are willing to move from Dublin, which I welcome because it is the objective of the programme and represents what we all believe decentralisation to be. However, moving a civil or public servant from an office in Tullamore to an office in Portlaoise is not decentralisation, and could not be understood to be such by anyone. It is a complete misrepresentation of the whole process.

It is quite clear that the Government's efforts in this regard are a shambles. In budget 2004 we were presented with a timeframe. The Minister of State referred to it and said the initial timescale mooted for the programme was, quite rightly, an ambitious one. What a load of rubbish. During the debate on decentralisation, he outlined his commitment to ensuring the timetable would be honoured. Every Opposition spokesperson said it was completely unrealistic but he and Senators on the Government benches said the opposite. When did the realisation dawn on the Minister of State and his Government colleagues that the timescale that was announced in budget 2004 was nothing other than a ball of smoke? The dogs in the street knew that the Government could not live up to the timescale that was announced. There were negligible levels of consultation with the public and civil servants who were involved in the decentralisation programme.

The Government's plans to pursue the programme were announced in the farcical Budget Statement of December 2003, which was the last budget to be presented to the Dáil by the former Minister, Mr. McCreevy. On that occasion, he did not announce much more than the decentralisation programme, which was designed with an eye on the local and European elections which were to take place the following June. It is clear that the Government's plan did not work then and I do not see how it will work now. The Government announced its decentralisation plans a number of months after the publication of the national spatial strategy. As the decentralisation programme did not bear any resemblance to the spatial strategy, it was holed below the waterline before it got started. When the decentralisation programme was announced, I asked the Minister of State to explain why it did not bear any resemblance to the spatial strategy.

The Minister of State spoke about the buildings and sites at certain locations which have been identified or purchased or are in the process of being identified or purchased. He did not refer to the ludicrous case of the relocation of the Department of Defence. A site in Newbridge that will cost €4 million or €5 million has been earmarked for the Department, even though the OPW owns the site of the former McKee Barracks a couple of miles away in Kildare town. Most of the 65 acres in question are lying vacant. I am sure a suitable location for the new headquarters of the Department of Defence could have been located at the site the Department owns at the Curragh Camp. The land in question, which extends to over 700 acres, is just a few miles from Newbridge. It does not seem to make much sense that the Department is so keen to purchase a hugely expensive new site in Newbridge.

It seems that the process of property acquisition is at a different stage in each of the 26 locations which have been earmarked for the decentralisation programme. The purchase of the sites and buildings in question will cost approximately €50 million and a further €300 million will be needed to kit them out fully. The Minister of State said he hopes the sale of lands, sites and offices in Dublin will cover the costs associated with the purchase and construction of buildings to house the civil and public servants who are being transferred to new locations throughout the country. It is clear to anyone with a limited knowledge of the property market that the Minister's ambitions in this regard are unlikely to be realised. The completion of the decentralisation programme will cost much more than the amount of money that will accrue from the sale of offices in the capital city which currently house Departments or Government agencies.

When they are discussing the decentralisation programme, Ministers and Ministers of State often conveniently forget to mention that 60% of the locations which are described as "early mover" locations under the programme are towns and cities in the Dublin commuter belt. That those who will be decentralised to such locations will not go to key unemployment black spots outside the eastern region clearly flies in the face of the decentralisation programme's objectives, as outlined when the programme was first mooted.

While I understand the Minister of State's comments about the potential loss of expertise, I disagree with them completely. If a person who has been working in a section of a Department for a number of years, building up a level of expertise in a specific area in the process, chooses not to stay in the section in question when it is relocated down the country, it is quite obvious that his or her expertise will be lost. The Minister of State rightly pointed out that new people will bring new ideas and, perhaps, increased enthusiasm to such sections but I do not think the Government has fully acknowledged that existing expertise will be lost in such circumstances.

The Minister of State also referred to the ongoing difficulties with the relocation of FÁS to Birr. I was under the impression that all the civil and public servants who are due to relocate to counties Laois and Offaly were delighted to be moving to Parlon country, but apparently that is not the case as things stand. Recent media reports indicated that just six members of the staff of FÁS want to relocate to Birr. That is not unusual. None of the 93 staff of Bord Iascaigh Mhara, none of the 178 staff of Fáilte Ireland, one of the 90 staff of the National Roads Authority, two of the Public Appointment Service's 100 staff, five of the 100 staff of the Valuation Office, nine of the 110 staff of the Health and Safety Authority, which is due to be decentralised to Thomastown in my home county of Kilkenny, 15 of the 210 staff of Ordnance Survey Ireland and 19 of the 300 staff of Enterprise Ireland have applied to participate in the decentralisation programme. Such statistics, which are not unusual, contradict what the Minister of State has told the House and what the Government continues to tell the public about the decentralisation programme. A response to a recent parliamentary question indicated that just 224 of the 1,300 people who work in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, or 17% of them, have applied to decentralise.