Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)
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Question 123: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of persons, the locations and Departments involved under the decentralisation of civil servants and of State agencies which will be completed by the end of 2006; and if he has sought an assessment of the quality of the planning of this programme which is now so far off target. [19423/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Decentralisation Implementation Group was established to drive the Decentralisation Programme forward and to oversee its effective delivery. In 2005 the Group, recognising that it would not be feasible for all organisations to move at the same time, proposed phasing arrangements and revised timeframes out to 2009 for civil service organisations. These arrangements were accepted by Government and announced in June of last year and I am satisfied that good progress continues to be made.

I understand that the Decentralisation Implementation Group has met with a number of Secretaries General to discuss their Implementation plans and are satisfied with the level of planning in each of the Departments. The Group is currently meeting with the Chief Executives of a number of State Agencies to discuss the planning framework in place, to assess progress to date and to hear about the challenges arising and steps proposed to address them.

To date, a small number of advance moves have already taken place to locations outside of Dublin as follows:

In addition to these moves a number of civil servants, who applied on the Central Applications Facility, have moved to locations where Departments had offices prior to the announcement of the current programme.

It is expected that up to 1,000 people will have decentralised under the current programme by end 2006 / early 2007. This figure includes some 65 posts in the Department of Agriculture which is going to Portlaoise, 130 posts in my own Department which is going to Tullamore, and 150 Revenue Commissioners posts which are going to the mid-west.

A number of organisations are being progressive in seeking advance or temporary accommodation to facilitate early moves. The following table shows details of the advance accommodation requests currently with the Office of Public Works. Depending on the availability of accommodation these moves are expected to take place by end 2006.