Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 469: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of persons within each unit or State agency of her Department who have opted to move to the proposed new location for their unit; the number of other Dublin based employees of her Department who have opted to move to one of the decentralising units within her Department; the number of persons who have to date in 2005 been assigned to each of the decentralising units; and the number of persons who have opted not to move with their decentralising unit who have been reassigned or offered an alternative posting. [36744/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department will be based in Mullingar, Athlone and Tullamore. Three hundred and one posts will be based in Mullingar, which will be a new location for my Department. At present, 323 posts are based in my Department's office in Athlone, but following completion of the programme of decentralisation this will rise to 424. There will be some reorganisation of work to facilitate the moves to Mullingar and Athlone. This will impact on the existing office in Tullamore and will increase the number of posts based there by 3.5.

The number of persons who are assigned to posts that will decentralise and who will relocate with those posts are 24 for Mullingar, four for Athlone and one for Tullamore. The numbers of other Dublin based employees who have opted to move with the Department to either Mullingar, Athlone or Tullamore are 31 for Mullingar, 12 for Athlone and nine for Tullamore. These people will be assigned to units moving to their location of choice in the coming weeks and months.

Following the completion of the programme of decentralisation my Department's presence in Dublin will consist of two regional offices, in Tallaght and Blanchardstown, and a number of members of the inspectorate and National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, who work directly with Dublin schools.

This leaves a very limited capacity to reassign or offer alternative postings within my Department. For this reason, Dublin based employees who opt not to decentralise with my Department will be redeployed to other organisations in accordance with centrally agreed protocols as part of the implementation of the programme of decentralisation.