Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 267: To ask the Minister for Finance if applications are being accepted for Dublin based civil servants who wish to transfer Departments in order to remain in Dublin; if so, if these applications are limited by grade; if so, the grades of the vacancies which exist; if not, the options such civil servants will have open to them; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32606/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The primary mechanism for placing civil servants who are in posts which are due to decentralise but wish to remain in Dublin is by way of bilateral transfer. As staff who have applied to decentralise continue to be transferred into decentralising organisations, the posts they vacate become available to those wishing to remain in Dublin. To date, in excess of 2000 staff have been assigned to decentralising posts.

In addition, my Department has been in discussions with the civil service unions on further arrangements to facilitate the placement of Dublin based staff. The objective of these arrangements is to provide to the Public Appointments Service details of staff who wish to remain in Dublin at each grade level so that a proportion of vacancies arising in Dublin based posts may be filled by those staff. Progress in this priority area is being monitored in co-operation with Departments and the relevant unions, to ensure that they are operating efficiently. The aim is to achieve a close alignment between the assignment of staff to Dublin posts and the readiness of Departments to release staff at particular grade levels.