Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 195: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will make a statement on the number of posts that have been decentralised to date, and of those, the number that have been decentralised from Dublin, and their grades; the number that have opted to remain in Dublin, and their grades; the number of those that have moved to another Department or agency in Dublin; and the number that have been decentralised from outside Dublin to other locations and their grades. [40710/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Government's current decentralisation programme for the civil and public service, some 1,200 posts comprising the Department's headquarter sections and the Social Welfare Appeals Office are relocating to 6 locations – Sligo, Carrick-on-Shannon, Donegal Town, Buncrana, Carrickmacross and Drogheda. To date, 212 posts have relocated from the Department's Dublin Offices to Carrick-on-Shannon and Sligo under the current programme – 140 posts to Carrick-on-Shannon and 72 posts to Sligo. As outlined in the table below, 69 officers were based in Dublin prior to their relocation under the decentralisation programme.

152 employees, who were based in the Business Units that relocated, opted to redeploy to other Business Units in the Department remaining in Dublin. They were redeployed to vacancies that arose due to normal staff turnover e.g. retirements, resignations, transfers and staff moving to other Departments for their decentralisation programmes. The table below outlines the grade breakdown.

In addition, the Department has decentralised offices in Longford, Sligo, Letterkenny, Waterford, Dundalk and Roscommon and some 219 Civil Servants, of which 42 employees were serving in provincial locations within this Department, have transferred to these offices and other offices of the Department to fill vacancies created by the current decentralisation programme. Furthermore, a total of 258 employees of the Department, of which 129 were provincial based, have transferred to other Government Departments for the purposes of their decentralisation programmes. The table below outlines the grade breakdown requested.