Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 399: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the status of the plan to move a section of his Department to Carlow town; the start date of construction on the site; the expected completion date; the timeframe for staff to be redeployed; and if there are plans to locate temporarily the section of the Department in Carlow town while the construction work is underway. [19451/05]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has been making good progress in implementing its decentralisation programme and has been selected for inclusion among the organisations listed as the potential early movers of the decentralisation programme. The Department's decentralisation implementation plan was revised earlier this year in light of the recommendations in the third report of the decentralisation implementation group and a second iteration of the plan was submitted to the Department of Finance in advance of the 31 March deadline set out in that report.

The OPW is close to completing a site acquisition in Carlow town centre and construction is due to commence in the second quarter of 2006. The third report of the decentralisation implementation group gave an indicative timeline of the second quarter of 2008 for completion of the new building in Carlow and my Department is working towards the redeployment of staff once the building has been completed. At this stage in the process, my Department does not plan to relocate a section of the Department to Carlow on a temporary basis while construction work is under way.