Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 50: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the decision that has been made regarding the location of the proposed Louth-Meath Vocational Education Committee; the criteria used to decide the location; the amount the new location will cost to make it ready for use; if there will be job losses in the Louth-Meath area; and the number of same. [31814/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Earlier this month, I announced and published the headquarter locations where VECs are being merged as a result of the Government decision to reduce the number of VECs from 33 to 16. In arriving at my decision in relation to the location of headquarters of the merged VECs, including the location of the headquarters of the Louth and Meath Education and Training Board at Drogheda, I considered a range of factors. These included the need to ensure that the location of a VEC headquarters will, to the greatest extent possible, facilitate staff redeployment under a redeployment scheme within the context of the Croke Park Agreement and the need to operate at lowest cost having regard to the accommodation available in existing locations.

The detail in relation to upgrading, refurbishment or acquisition of accommodation at Drogheda will be worked through by the Department in conjunction with the VECs involved and the new merged body when established. Staff employed in the VEC headquarters are public servants and under the terms of the Croke Park agreement, such staff employed in a permanent capacity cannot be made compulsorily redundant. However, surplus staff may be redeployed. In common with all areas of the public service, VECs are subject to an Employment Control Framework (ECF). This places an upper limit on the number of staff which a public service organisation can have. Both VECs have each been set ECF targets to be achieved by the end of 2011. Redeployment arrangements to bring about the staffing reductions required to meet ECF limits will be agreed in accordance with the principles of the Croke Park agreement and will involve the unions representative of the grades concerned.