Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 53: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the measures he is taking to accommodate farmers in counties where his Department's offices are due to close. [43638/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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On 15th 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.

The decision to close some forty 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.

Improvements in business processes, information technology and communications will allow the Department to provide to all of our clients, such services as those referred to earlier, from the 16 enhanced offices set out in the plan. In essence, the new structure was designed to improve and enhance service delivery by integrating into regional offices a range of services that were previously delivered from a much larger number of local offices, thus delivering better levels of customer services through new regional ' one stop shops'.