Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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52. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will consider a programme of decentralisation of Government Departments to assist rural Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29437/24]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, there was a Decentralisation Programme in operation from 2003 to 2011 with c.3,400 posts decentralised. The programme was cancelled by the Government in light of the budgetary and staffing outlook at that time.

The Civil Service Mobility scheme which comes under the remit of my department, and is administered through HR Shared Services, National Shared Services Office, offers an opportunity for staff members in all generalist grades from CO to PO, to apply for a mobility move through an open and transparent system. The establishment of the scheme fulfils one of the requirements of Action 15 of the Civil Service Renewal Plan and Action 14 of the People Strategy for the Civil Service, which calls for the further expansion of a coherent mobility policy to facilitate staff development and strategic alignment with other HR policies, builds upon this.

The location choices in the scheme are divided into mobility zones rather than county or province. An applicant may express a preference for mobility for a maximum of 2 zones from the list of 46 zones with a choice of up to 5 organisations in each.

The scheme was launched per grade over a number of years commencing in 2018 and to date there have been 555 staff moves to a new location outside of Dublin while there have been 99 staff moves into Dublin from regional locations. There have been a total of 1251 staff moves between or within regional locations. A total of 3,300 staff moves have taken place through the scheme to date (including moves within Dublin).

Alongside the Mobility scheme it is worth noting that the vast majority of open competitions for civil service positions, which are advertised by the Public Appointments Service on www.publicjobs.ie, allow for the formation of regional panels to fill regional vacancies as the business needs arise at all levels within the civil service.

With the current programmes that are in place we now have over half of all civil servants working outside the Dublin region.

There are currently no plans to introduce a further programme of decentralisation.