Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 262: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will provide, in tabular form, the number of civil servants awaiting transfer to locations within the Laois/Offaly area, including Roscrea; if these transfers are affected by the moratorium on recruitment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27070/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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223 people have applied to transfer to Portlaoise with this Department under the Decentralisation Programme. This is broken down as follows.

The Government decision on the decentralisation of my Department was that some 600 headquarters posts would move to Portlaoise. Since the programme began there has been an increase of some 300 staff there. Although this Department does have local offices located in Offaly and Tipperary, they are not among the locations to which this Department is moving under the current decentralisation Programme. 21 people have applied for these locations via the Central Applications Facility (CAF) however vacancies arising in these offices are currently not filled by way of CAF.

Civil servants can also apply to transfer to my Departments local offices via the central transfer list. There are currently 525 names on my Department's Laois/Offaly and Tipperary transfer lists; these are not unique instances but are made up of individuals' duplicate applications to different locations.

The Government Moratorium in the Civil Service does not allow Departments to fill posts by recruitment or promotion without the sanction of the Minister for Finance, but does not prevent the filling of posts by lateral transfers within Departments, or between different Departments where this can be arranged.