Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 519: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will reply to this Deputy's correspondence of 26 May 2009; if there will be a service to farmers at the Ballybay District Veterinary Office, County Monaghan, regarding normal DVO activity to allow them to meet vets and other such Department personnel in the present and long term future; if he will explain what he means when he states that the Ballybay DVO office will not be closed; the way he can justify the removal of such services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36671/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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On 15 July, the Government approved my plan for a reorganisation of my Department's Local Office Network. The plan involves reducing, from 57 to 16, the number of offices from which the Department will operate District Veterinary, Forestry and Agricultural Environment and Structures support services in the future. A press release was issued by my Department on 17th July 2009.

Improvements in business processes, information technology and communications will allow the Department to provide to our clients such services as those referred to earlier, from the 16 enhanced offices set out in the plan.

In relation to the Ballybay office, I can confirm that this office is not one of the 16 enhanced centres. District Veterinary, Agricultural Environment and Structures, and Integrated Controls work from Ballybay and Monaghan town and will be transferred to the regional office in Cavan and such services to farmers will be provided from this and other regional centres. The office in Ballybay will remain as a Department office, as outlined previously.

Recently, I announced phase 1 of the implementation of the reorganisation of the local office network. This involves the establishment of the first four of the new regional offices – in Drumshanbo, Enniscorthy, Navan and Waterford – and the closure of a number of those local offices previously identified for closure.

The Ballybay office is not affected by this particular phase of the implementation programme. My Department is progressing the identification of those activities and services that will be carried out in Ballybay, including those that might be transferred from other local offices to Ballybay.

Work is continuing on the next phase of the reorganisation plan which, I expect, will be finalised and announced towards the end of the year. Following my original announcement in July, the staff of the Department's local offices, including those in Ballybay, were fully briefed, at a series of meetings, as to the reorganisation plan. As soon as I am in a position to announce details of the Ballybay office, the staff will be the first to be informed.

I remain fully committed to the maintenance of the Ballybay office as an integral part of my Department and the retention of the maximum number of Departmental staff.

Let me reassure you that the decision to close some 40 offices of the Department was made only after we had completed a detailed study of the Department's operations at local level. Decisions were made in relation to the overall strategy and against a background of major changes in the Department's operating environment in recent years brought about by the impact of the Single Farm Payment, benefits derived from substantial investment in Information Communications Technology and significant reductions in the incidence of disease.

The sudden and significant decline in the public finances since 2008 has required all of us to examine expenditure to identify possible savings and you will be aware that major changes on the programme side of the Department have been implemented in recent months. When fully implemented this reorganisation will result in a reduction of some 400 in the number of staff working in my Department and deliver very significant annual savings to the Exchequer.