Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for bringing this matter before the House and I appreciate his brevity in putting forward his case. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes. I am pleased to have an opportunity to brief the House on the plans by the Department of Social Protection to integrate its services in Bantry, to which end it will be working closely with the Office of Public Works.

The OPW's role in assisting the Department to deliver this programme is to provide appropriate, modern and efficient accommodation that meets the Department's business requirements and allows it to deliver services to customers efficiently and effectively. The new integrated service will be delivered primarily through the new Intreo offices, but also by way of consolidating services in a number of towns, such as Bantry, where traditional signing services are provided under contract by a branch office, rather than a local office, and where other services such as community welfare and employment services operate from separate locations. The Department is also examining the role of branch offices with regard to job activation.

The Government has set ambitious targets to deliver the Intreo programme in 63 locations by the end of 2014. Wherever possible, the OPW has been working within the existing portfolio of owned and leased buildings to modify those buildings to meet the requirements of the Department of Social Protection. In some cases, it has been necessary to lease and fit out new accommodation to achieve that target. This programme of works represents a very significant investment in terms of both funding by the Government and the allocation of administrative, architectural and technical resources by the OPW. To date, 43 new Intreo offices have been opened and are fully operational. The Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, attended the official opening by An Taoiseach of a most impressive new office in Castlebar on 21 February, and he and his officials and remain firmly focused on delivering the rest of the programme by the end of 2014.

The Minister of State's officials are working with their colleagues in the Department of Social Protection to develop a programme, in so far as it is possible in the short term, to integrate services in towns such as Bantry, where there is a branch office. This will likely result in a multi-annual programme of works for the OPW. There may be contractual issues to address in regard to branch offices, which are a matter for the Minister for Social Protection, as well as other practical accommodation issues to be addressed. It is a feature of the model of integrated services developed by the Department that the public-facing side of operations such as waiting areas, serving hatches, interview rooms and group engagement rooms are significantly larger when compared with traditional local social welfare offices. This is a welcome development, but it creates its own challenges. In some locations, particularly smaller regional towns, the size of existing office accommodation required to deliver the range of consolidated services may not be available at all, or may be in a less central and readily accessible location. Where these larger offices do exist, they tend to be in retail or industrial parks on the edge of towns, which can make access for those dependent on public transport more difficult.

Another issue is that there may be several years left to run on existing leased accommodation. In such cases, the OPW and the Department will try to balance the aim of consolidating services with the desire to avoid paying rent on premises that would be vacated prematurely if all services were consolidated in one location. This is particularly relevant where there is no alternative requirement for the accommodation that would be vacated. In circumstances such as these, the strategy may be to deliver services from two locations initially, with a view to further consolidation over a longer period of time. These types of considerations, together with the underlying demand for services in the various towns, will feed into the prioritisation of individual projects within the developing programme.

The consolidation of services in Bantry is likely to be assigned a high priority and, as such, I expect progress to be made there this year. The Senator has outlined the particular circumstances that exist in Bantry, where, in addition to the branch office on Bridge Street which is operated under contract by a third party, the staff of the Department of Social Protection deliver services from four other locations around the town. It is unfortunate, however, that none of the existing OPW-leased properties in Bantry is big enough to support an integrated operation. I am conscious of the Department's desire to consolidate services, as set out in the revised brief of its requirements for Bantry which it forwarded recently to the OPW.

The Department recently forwarded a revised brief of its requirements for Bantry to the OPW. This brief informs the search for and assessment of appropriate accommodation. A search for viable accommodation is under way and officials from the OPW and the Department recently inspected a number of potential properties in Bantry. Initial technical assessments of potentially viable candidate buildings is due to commence shortly. This search process is, however, ongoing so if the Senator is aware of potentially suitable premises, he should inform the Department or the Minister of their existence.