Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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629. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will confirm the arrangements being put in place to maintain the services provided to local farmers in the midlands following the recent decision to close the Tullamore regional office of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. [7931/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I would like to emphasise that the Tullamore office is not being closed down. The position is that the administrative functions are being transferred to the Cavan office but the Department’s vets, inspectors and technical officers will remain in place at the existing local offices to service our clients across all of the schemes that are provided from these offices. Frontline services will be fully maintained and public access for all of the Departments stakeholders will continue to be available in the Tullamore office.

The transfer of the administrative functions out of the Tullamore office arises from an extensive review of the local office structure which was carried out by the Department over the last number of years. This review concluded that, arising from investment in technology and the substantial reduction in disease levels in recent years, significant efficiencies would accrue from the centralisation of administrative functions in two centres, thereby giving rise to significant scope for redeployment of administrative staff from existing local offices. The process of centralising the administrative functions commenced in 2012 and is on-going.

In line with Government policy, the Department has actively sought redeployment opportunities for administrative staff in local Offices and staff have already been transferred from the local offices in Limerick, Tipperary, Enniscorthy and Waterford to other Departments and agencies, such as the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Justice, in order to enable those bodies to provide important services, including the property tax, Garda vetting etc. With regard to Tullamore, the Department is finalising arrangements to redeploy administrative staff from the Tullamore Local Office to the Department of Public Expenditure (Shared Payroll Services) in Tullamore with effect from 1 March 2014.

This Department will continue to maintain a public office in Tullamore and, indeed, in all of the locations from which the administrative functions are being transferred. The centralisation of administrative support should not impact negatively upon local access and services for local customers.