Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 145: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of civil servants and other public servants who will have been decentralised from Dublin to other locations by the original deadline for the completion of the plan of December 2006; if, in view of the very poor response to the scheme so far, he has plans to review the scale or scope of the proposal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33061/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I have no plans to change the scale or scope of the decentralisation programme. In line with the timeframes set out by the Decentralisation Implementation Group, I expect that up to 1,000 people will have decentralised to 11 locations by end 2006-early 2007.

I do not accept the assertion by the Deputy that there has been a very poor response rate to the Government's decentralisation programme. As the Deputy will be aware there have been about 10,500 applications so far and new applications are being received each week. Since the closing of the priority application period on 7 September 2004, an average of over 20 new applications have been received each week over the past 14 months. The CAF remains open and continues to accept applications.