Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 67: To ask the Minister for Finance the total 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; his plans to review the scale or scope of the proposal in view of the very poor response to the scheme to date in 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39009/05]

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 in its June report, I expect that up to 1,000 people will have decentralised to 11 locations by end 2006 or early 2007.

The Government is very pleased with the numbers of people who have applied to the central applications facility, CAF. There are about 10,600 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 more than 100 new applications have been received each month over the past 14 months. The CAF remains open and continues to accept further new applications.