Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Nov 1991

Vol. 413 No. 6

Written Answers. - Office Closure.

Michael Noonan

Question:

70 Mr. Noonan (Limerick East) asked the Minister for Finance the reason the Customs and Excise office in Limerick is being closed as a collection seat and administrative centre; if he will reverse this decision, to ensure that the 23 staff at present employed at the Limerick office can continue to work there and reside in the Limerick area.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern)

With the advent of the EC Single Market on 1 January 1993, it will be necessary to discontinue most of the existing customs checks and controls on intra-Community traffic.

Recently, the Revenue Commissioners carried out a study to assess the impact of this event on staffing in the Customs and Excise service and to consider revised organisational structures appropriate to the post-1992 environment.

The resulting report — made available to all members of the Customs and Excise staff and union representatives — showed a substantial reduction in staff numbers required to perform the traditional Customs and Excise work remaining post-1992 and proposed certain changes in organisational structures.

Under the present organisational structure, the country is divided for Customs and Excise purposes, into five administrative areas known as collections. Each collection is in the charge of a collector. The report proposed that, in the post-1922 environment, for collections only would be required (viz. Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Galway) with Limerick being closed as the seat of a collection. It is envisaged that all the work now administered by the collector Limerick would be redistributed among Galway, Cork and Waterford collections and the collector's office in Limerick (23 staff) would be closed. It is proposed that 82 staff currently serving in the stations attached to the Limerick collection area will continue to serve in the same locations but within new administrative areas.

In making this particular proposal, the future volume and concentration of Revenue work in the provincial collections and the suitable location of administrative centres were taken into account.

It should be borne in mind that the proposals and findings in the report are based on certain assumptions and positions relating to the Single Market. Some of these issues have not yet been fully worked out, either because basic decisions on direction (Community or national) have yet to be reached, or, because practical measures for the implementation of decisions taken "in principle" have yet to be advanced. Consequently the proposals are necessarily tentative.

It may emerge that compensating revenue and non-revenue work will absorb some of the surplus Customs and Excise staff resources. This situation is still developing and is being fully explored by the commissioners.

It is the aim of the commissioners to try to provide a career for all Customs and Excise staff in, or close to, their present locations so as to minimise domestic disruption to staff and their families. It is envisaged that discussions between the commissioners and staff interests will be on-going as the situation develops in order to resolve this issue. Given a reasonable degree of flexibility on the part of Revenue staff interests there is a good possibility that a substantial proportion of any staff surplus arising in Limerick can be absorbed within Revenue there when a branch of the commissioners' office is re-located in Limerick in 1993 under the Government's decentralisation programme.