Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department has not closed down the public office of the district veterinary office in Roscommon town. In fact, it intends to maintain a public office in the town.

Following the successful reorganisation of my Department's local office structure in recent years, which resulted in the reduction of the local offices from 58 to 16, my Department conducted a review of the work carried out in the remaining local offices during 2012. The objective of the review was to identify any non-essential work and which, if any, of the essential functions should be organised differently. The review was also to make recommendations which would inform the Department's longer term vision and strategy for delivery of these services in light of reducing public service numbers. The review was in line with the Government’s policy which imposes an obligation on all Departments to conduct their business as efficiently as possible.

The review made several recommendations aimed at improving business processes both in the local offices and in the manner in which they implement various schemes, in particular the disease eradication schemes, with a view to reducing the administrative burden on farmers and the cost to the Department of administering these schemes. Two of the recommendations were that cattle passports should no longer be taken up from TB-restricted herds and that the practice of issuing movement permits for clear cattle in reactor herds should be discontinued. The review also concluded that, arising from the investment in technology and the substantial reduction in disease levels in recent years, there was already a surplus of administrative staff in the local offices. It concluded that the implementation of the recommendations contained in the report would result in a significant reduction in the administrative staffing requirements in these offices.

The recommendations relating to the TB eradication scheme have now been implemented and well received by the farming organisations. Implementation of these recommendations has significantly reduced the workloads of the administrative staff in the local offices and, in light of this, my Department further recommended that the administrative functions of the local offices could be more efficiently delivered through one or two centralised offices, thereby leading to a substantial reduction in the number of administrative staff required to deliver these functions.

I have accepted this recommendation and Cavan and Portlaoise have been designated as the two centres where the administrative functions will be centralised. These two centres have been selected because my Department already has a significant presence there and, following the introduction of centralised human services and payroll services across all Departments, additional staff will become available to service the administrative functions of the district veterinary offices in these two centres.

Implementation of the recommendations contained in the review group fits in both with my Department's objectives in driving efficiency and savings, as well as with the broad public service reform agenda. Centralising administrative procedures will enable my Department to reduce the number of administrative staff it requires to support veterinary office operations and, accordingly, the cost of providing its services. This is in line with the Government’s policy. In addition, the centralisation of administrative functions will facilitate the redeployment of staff from the local offices to other State agencies and, thereby, enable the Government to provide services through these agencies more efficiently.

The centralisation of administrative functions will not negatively impact upon local access and services for local customers. The Department vets, inspectors and technical officers will remain in place at these offices to service our clients across all of the schemes that are provided from our regional offices. In view of this, front-line services will be fully maintained and public access for all of the Departments stakeholders will continue to be available at the 16 regional offices.

In line with my decision to centralise administrative services, administrative functions have already been transferred out of several regional offices, notably, Ennis, Clonakilty, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, without any negative implications for the provision of services to farmer clients. The transfer of the administrative functions out of other regional offices, such as Roscommon, will be considered in light of the availability of opportunities to redeploy the staff concerned to support other critical public services. In this context, my Department has been in contact with several State agencies, including the Department of Social Protection, on the establishment of redeployment opportunities with a view to progressing the centralisation process.

The volume of work administered by the administrative staff in the district veterinary offices has declined considerably in recent years due to computerisation, the significant drop in the incidence of disease, particularly TB and brucellosis, and the changes made to the TB eradication scheme last year. For instance, in Tipperary Town, the staff in the district veterinary office were the most hardworking and dedicated. They were transferred to the Garda vetting agency based in the town and retrained. They would tell the Senator the change was good for them and secured their employment in the town. I met some of the farmers at the recent meeting in Roscommon town. I explained how the change in my local district veterinary office had no impact on the service delivered to me. We need to be straight with people. If these offices were left open, it would be at considerable cost. Accordingly, the suckler cow premium which we introduced in the budget could not be implemented.