JOINT COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE debate -
Thursday, 29 Jul 2004

Public Service Decentralisation Programme: Presentations.

Chairman

Apologies have been received from Deputies Burton, Finneran, McGuinness and Ó Caoláin and Senators Higgins and Mansergh.

At today's meeting the joint committee is continuing its consideration of issues arising from the decentralisation of some Government offices and Departments and the offices of some State agencies to locations outside Dublin. Yesterday the committee had discussions with three people working in the academic field, two locally based organisations with a direct interest in the contribution that decentralisation can make to balanced regional development, and two Departments which successfully carried out decentralisation programmes during the 1990s. The committee intends to schedule further meetings after the August break.

Today's meeting focuses on a discussion with representatives of those on whom decentralisation will impact in a most direct way, both personally and professionally. Unions representing civil and public servants will have the opportunity to set out the threats or opportunities which their members see for their careers and personal lives in the Government's decentralisation programme. Civil and public servants are intimately acquainted with the workings of the machinery of Government, the formulation of policy and the delivery of services. The representatives are therefore well placed to comment on how the current proposal will influence the way this work will be carried out in a decentralised Government programme structure.

The visitors are here under the umbrella of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions which I thank for organising the delegation, suggesting the appropriate structure for the discussion and ensuring the committee is exposed to all shades of opinion across the civil and public service. I thank all our visitors for attending. They are all very welcome.

We will begin with brief introductory remarks on behalf of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. This will be followed by presentations of no more than seven minutes on behalf of each of the eight unions in the order shown on the schedule which has been distributed. Presentations should be concluded after one hour. We will then break for a maximum of 30 minutes, following which questions will be put to the contributors by members of the committee. The intention is to conclude by lunch time.

I remind our guests that while comments of Members of the Oireachtas are protected by parliamentary privilege, those of our visitors are not so protected. For the benefit of the committee, those making presentations should give us an indication at the outset of the numbers of people in the public service represented by the particular union, together with the grades of people involved. Not every committee member knows the details of every union so it is important that at the outset of the presentations we are given a pen-picture of those to whom reference is being made. I understand that Mr. Liam Berney will make the opening remarks on behalf of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Mr. Liam Berney

I thank the committee for the invitation to make a presentation. Congress as an organisation and our affiliated unions are not opposed in any way to the concept of a decentralised public and civil service. However, as the committee will hear from representatives of our affiliated unions, the scheme announced in last year's budget and the manner in which it is to be implemented have caused significant concern on the part of Congress.

I will make two broad points regarding the perspective of Congress in the context of the discussions we have had with the Department of Finance up to now. Because of the scale of the decentralisation plan, the number of jobs envisaged for transfer and the range of Departments involved, Congress has raised some business case issues with regard to the decentralisation initiative. We have posed some significant questions as to how the organisations will function in a decentralised capacity, how they will continue to provide their services, and regarding the notion of corporate memory. The first implementation group report has recognised these issues but they have not been addressed in our discussions to date with the Department of Finance. We are concerned that the public service will suffer as a result of the proposal currently envisaged.

Congress is also concerned about what is being perceived as a voluntary scheme. As currently set out, the scheme for some people will be far from voluntary. A public servant in an organisation which is to be decentralised and who chooses not to transfer could be forcibly transferred to another organisation. Forced transfers do not accord with the notion of voluntary moves. My colleagues will provide detail on the difficulties the decentralisation proposal is causing for organisations and Departments. I thank the committee and will be happy to deal with any questions.

Chairman

Thank you. The first presentation will be made by Mr. Blair Horan, general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union. I understand Mr. Horan will be unable to remain for the discussion later and that Ms Rosaleen Glacken, deputy general secretary, will represent the CPSU at that stage.

Mr. Blair Horan

I thank the Chairman. My union has its final executive meeting this morning before the summer break so I must leave by 11 a.m. I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it and give our views on the decentralisation programme. We are the largest Civil Service union, with some 13,000 members, of whom 12,000 are in the Civil Service, primarily at the grades of staff officer and clerical officer, though there are also some ancillary grades. We also represent members in the Irish Aviation Authority, FÁS and the Ordnance Survey, who are also affected by the programme, and we have members in An Post, Eircom and Coillte.

Neither on this programme nor on the previous decentralisation programme were we happy with the level of consultation afforded to us by the Government. We have consistently made the point that the way in which the Government announced the decentralisation programme without adequate consultation with trade union and staff interests was not appropriate, particularly in the context of social partnership and the partnership agreements currently in place. We have consistently argued for a higher level of consultation. Even with the confidentiality necessary in aspects of the programme, mechanisms could have been found to afford us more consultation.

In May 2001, we made a submission to the Department of Finance in which we identified three criteria that we believed were important for the programme. The first was that there should be social and economic criteria. The second was that the locations chosen should take account of the locations to which Civil Servants wish to transfer. Finally, they should provide good career opportunities for civil servants who wish to remain in Dublin and also in the provincial areas to which civil servants would be decentralised.

Having said that, the Government has made a decision, and we accept that. We will not get involved in its politics; nor will we comment on that. It is primarily a function of the Government and the Oireachtas. It is their responsibility to ensure that services can be adequately delivered to citizens. In our experience, the last programme, if anything, enhanced service delivery to citizens rather than diminished it. There is no reason why it cannot be the same now. This time round, if there were any situations where we felt that services were not adequate, we would say so. However, we are now working on the basis that this is a practical proposition, but that there are timescale considerations.

We will support this programme on two criteria, the first being that it is genuinely voluntary, by which we mean that there is no context in which people are restricted in their promotion opportunities in Dublin or forced to take a promotion only if they will transfer to a provincial location. The second is that promotion and career opportunities for people in Dublin are protected. Provided those two criteria are met, the CPSU will fully support the programme in respect of the Civil Service and the general service grades with which we are concerned. We believe it is feasible over a realistic timescale.

We have produced some figures for the committee. They come with a health warning in that we have extracted them from the information that the Department of Finance has given us. They do not fully tally with some of the overall figures that the CAF produced. We had a discussion with the Department of Finance on that yesterday, and there is still some work to be done to match all the figures fully. However, I believe that the broad trends outlined by the figures are accurate and will stand up. Those figures relate predominantly to the Civil Service general service grades. They do not include State agencies or professional or technical grades in the Civil Service. Neither do they include people from outside the Civil Service who are applying for posts. Civil servants are applying for Civil Service general service locations. However, they indicate quite a significant take-up under this programme. At clerical officer grade, the level of take-up is86%. At staff officer grade, there is more than 100% take-up, since it is oversubscribed. Members will see very clearly that, as one goes up the grades, the interest becomes less. Nevertheless, it indicates very significant interest in the programme.

One of the trends evident is that approximately 50% of the people who now want to transfer to those locations are already outside Dublin. About half of the people who want to go at the grades with which we are concerned are in Dublin, and their posts will move. The other half is outside Dublin. They want to move to a new location. That means that the surplus in Dublin will relate to the difference between those who want to move. Where there is a shortfall or interest in taking up a post outside Dublin, there will be a significant surplus in Dublin. In that context, the surplus would have to be managed over a period, though it is difficult to see how it might be managed over a three to four year timeframe.

Places such as Carrick-on-Shannon, Drogheda and Claremorris are oversubscribed. In Carrick-on-Shannon, most of the interest is coming from Longford. In Claremorris, most of the interest is coming from Mayo. In Drogheda, most of the interest is coming from Dublin. We carried out a survey about two months ago. Our survey is now broadly reflected in the CAF figures. In that respect, we can say that the interest in the programme within an 80-mile radius of Dublin is predominantly from people in Dublin. Outside an 80-mile radius of Dublin, the interest is predominantly from people who have already decentralised. That should not be a surprise, since most of the people who wanted to go to Mayo, Limerick and Cork got the opportunity to decentralise under the 1990s programme. What they want now is an opportunity to reduce their commuting time and get closer to where they are living.

In the 1990s programme, there was substantial direct recruitment to such places as Limerick and Sligo. In other words, there was a shortfall even at clerical officer level, and they had to recruit directly from those locations. Now there is no shortfall, since enough people in the Civil Service are willing to take the posts. However, in such places as Limerick and Nenagh, when those people move into Thurles, which is what they want to do, one will have to back-fill their posts. It is a little different regarding how it has to happen. However, it shows that there is very significant interest in this programme from people in the Civil Service. There are some areas which we believe should be re-examined. For example, there are not enough posts in Navan for people who want to go there, and the same is true of Trim and Youghal.

None of what has happened so far has come as a surprise to us. Traditionally the Civil Service has recruited both from Dublin and provincial areas. It is quite different with the State agencies, which recruit predominantly in Dublin. It is therefore no surprise to us that the level of interest from areas outside the Civil Service is different. At clerical officer level, there will be a surplus in Dublin, since the people who take up the programme who are already outside Dublin will create a surplus. The shortfall that is there will also create part of the surplus. When one examines the figures for clerical officer recruitment, one sees that there may be a surplus of perhaps 1,100 or 1,200 such officers over time. Last year 1,000 clerical officers were recruited. This year alone, 400 clerical officers were recruited. From that one can see that it will not be difficult over a period of three or four years. Even where there is a shortfall in Dublin, that will be absorbed, essentially through recruitment taking place only outside Dublin, with surplus clerical officers in Dublin being used to fill the posts.

Our experience of the 1990s programme was very positive. It showed that there was a very high degree of interest in the programme. What happened under the 1990s programme was that, when posts were not filled above clerical level, they were filled on promotion. By and large, there was no difficulty with a take-up of posts on promotion. We would expect that, on this occasion, if the posts are offered on promotion, there will be a significant additional take-up in Dublin. I must balance that with the caveat that the more of a surplus one creates in Dublin, the more difficult it is to protect promotions there. Our support for the programme is conditional on maintaining promotion opportunities in Dublin and a good career structure for people there. There will be areas where we will have strong disagreements with the Department of Finance over the appropriate balance, and we do not anticipate that will be an easy issue.

In summary, the CPSU will support the programme for the general service grades in the Civil Service, which it believes is feasible. We will not do so at the expense of our members in Dublin, and our criteria must be met.

Chairman

The next presentation is from Tom Geraghty, deputy general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union.

Mr. Tom Geraghty

The Public Service Executive Union has just fewer than 10,000 members. There are members in every Department and in five of the State agencies affected by this proposal. Our members are at junior and middle management levels. They are executive officers, higher executive officers and equivalent grades.

In terms of the programme, between 2,500 and 3,000 of the posts to be decentralised are in the grades represented by the PSEU. I make that point because one would not think that to hear the debate on this issue in public. The reason is that the debate has focused on certain aspects of the proposal. On the one hand, people argue that it is desirable from the viewpoint of regional development. On the other hand, some argue against it on the basis that it could potentially affect the delivery of public services. The PSEU has not participated in that debate. Our concern is solely with the people who are affected by it. I cannot avoid the observation that it is a pity the Government did not take up the union's suggestion before making specific decisions to survey the people affected to ascertain how many were interested in decentralising and to where. However, that is history at this stage. The decision has been made and we are well used to dealing with the whims and caprices of Government. We treat all such matters as industrial relations issues. We are not getting into the politics of it. This is obviously an industrial relations issue of considerable significance, given the scale of the proposed decentralisation.

What are the effects on the people involved? There are approximately 3,000 people in the PSEU who are already located outside Dublin. For those people anything that moves some career opportunities nearer to them is welcome. They have been starved of career opportunities to date, and any proposal that improves that is to be welcomed so far as they are concerned. As a result of the preliminary outcome of the central applications facility, CAF, process it appears there are approximately 1,000 people in Dublin who are interested in relocating. Clearly for those two groups this is a positive development. For the remainder of the people, however, I have characterised their reactions as ranging from apprehension to sheer terror — that is not an over-statement.

The terror is due to a number of factors. First, we do not have answers. People want to know how decentralisation will affect them, where they will end up working and what they will be doing, their career prospects etc. In some instances there are income implications because people may be paid allowances for particular jobs and others are on shift work or are paid overtime and whatever. All these matters are of major concern to the people affected.

We do not have answers and that is most unsatisfactory. However, we have an industrial relations, IR, process for dealing with such issues and we will continue to engage in that process so long as the employer is willing to reciprocate and try to deal with the problems that arise. In terms of this IR issue there are only two absolutes so far as the PSEU is concerned. There are no circumstances under which we can agree that people could be coerced in any shape or form. There are no circumstances in which the union will co-operate with a total shutdown of career opportunities for its members who remain in Dublin. That is a very real fear among people who remain in Dublin and who have no intention of moving.

It is important to put that into context. For the majority of people who join the Civil Service, it is a career choice. It is not a temporary job from which they plan to move. They see themselves as remaining within the Civil Service and developing a career within it. Whatever happens, that has to be maintained. The union will work, obviously, to try to resolve issues that arise out of that, but there is an absolute. It has been signalled by the Department of Finance, in its own inimitable style, that issues will arise about career outlets for people in Dublin. This may be anticipated given that large numbers of posts are being shifted out of the capital. However, the PSEU will not co-operate with that — I want to make that clear.

The union represents people in five of the State agencies affected by this proposal. There are particular issues for those people. Unlike people who have entered the Civil Service who see themselves moving around the different parts of a generalised service, the majority of people who work for the State agencies have made a career choice to work for a particular agency. They are not interested in being transferred to another State agency or Department. That creates particular difficulties in terms of mobility and dealing with the problems that arise from the current proposal.

An example of this that struck me on the way here was that of the chief executive of the Irish Sports Council, Mr. John Treacy. I presume he intends to continue working for the Sports Council. He has no great interest in working for a Department. This is a good illustration of the point that many people have chosen a career because of the particular interest they have in the work done by a State agency. There is a fear among the people in the Civil Service that the problems of the State agencies will be resolved at their expense. If it becomes clear that it is not viable to transfer the State agencies, it is feared the temptation to bridge that shortfall will be met by moving other parts of the Civil Service. The preliminary results of the CAF would indicate that most locations are undersubscribed and it is not a solution to shift additional parts of the Civil Service. This needs to be clarified in advance before anybody becomes tempted by that as a simple solution to what is a complex problem.

In general, therefore, the PSEU sees this as an industrial relations problem. The union will continue to participate in the IR processes to try to resolve difficulties that arise provided the two absolutes I have indicated are not damaged or interfered with.

Chairman

The next presentation is from Mr. Seán Ó Riordáin, General Secretary of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants.

Mr. Seán Ó Riordáin

I thank the committee for the invitation to address it. The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants represents approximately 3,200 members in senior management positions, mainly at principal and assistant principal levels, in the Civil Service and State agencies. Like our colleagues, we are concerned with pay norms and the terms and conditions of employment. However, we are also, as managers, enormously concerned with the effective delivery of Government services. We were involved in strategic change before SMI became popular and indeed the union's contribution to pubic service reform has been recognised by successive Taoisigh.

The proposed decentralisation of 10,300 public servants is the most fundamental change in public administration since the foundation of the State. When it was originally proposed in 2001, the AHCPS wrote to the Department of Finance and called for meaningful advanced discussions. We said the imperative of voluntary decentralisation should be respected. We also said it should add to rather than take from administrative efficiency and that location should be chosen along rational lines rather than on the traditional party political model. Obviously, we wanted human resource issues addressed and like the other unions we wanted an advance survey. Due to the complexity of the issues involved for local communities, Government and all the stakeholders, we thought the best way to proceed was on a consultative, reflective basis and we suggested the publication of a Green Paper before final decisions were taken.

Like our colleagues, we were dismayed at the manner in which the decision was taken. It appeared at the time that apart from any other considerations, prior consultation with the unions on this key issue, and indeed partnership, had been abandoned. We then engaged in a consultative process with all our members and branches over a three month period. That led to the publication of the document, which I am circulating, Public Service Relocation Programme: An Opportunity Missed and Challenge to Meet.

That assessment contains three messages. First, it confirms the union's support for voluntary decentralisation. Up to now those areas which have been subject to decentralisation were dealt with on a gradual timescale. By and large no problems were encountered that could not be dealt with.

The assessment articulates very serious concerns about the effects of forced fragmentation and dispersal of central Government functions on policy formulation at departmental, ministerial, national and international levels; on cohesive government, administrative efficiency and service delivery to principal clients groups. We make no apology for our genuine concern on service delivery. We believe we would be failing in our duty to our members, if not the public, if we did not articulate that. It also outlines a rational and reasonable approach to decentralisation, which includes a cost and impact analysis, an altered scope and timescale and the adoption of a more consultative and partnership approach with the trade unions.

The Special Delegate Conference on 1 March 2004 endorsed a resolution by the executive committee calling on Government to publish detailed costings and impact analysis, to reconsider the scope and timeframe of decentralisation. We suggested a ten to 15 year timeframe. We asked for a new negotiated HR policy which would respect legitimate career aspirations and not create a public service wasteland in Dublin. At conference, we were requested to pursue that with top level politicians and we sought meetings with the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service.

Subsequently, Dr. Ed Walsh, President Emeritus of the University of Limerick, addressed our annual delegate conference and in addition to articulating concerns from his experience, he also drew on international experience. I made available at conference material we had received under the Freedom of Information Act which showed that serious reservations at the dispersal of core policy functions and on the fragmentation of services had been expressed by some heads of core Departments in 2000 when decentralisation was originally proposed.

At the heart of the strategic management initiative is the need to create cohesive joined up government and better policy making across the range of Government activities rather than having each Department behave as an independent republic. There is absolutely no question but that the widespread dispersal of central policy functions throughout the country makes cohesive joined up government more difficult. Nationally and internationally, dispersal also makes policy determination and co-ordination more difficult for Ministers, Government, Departments and civil servants. Based on our experience, we do not believe that video conferencing and information technology solve all the problems.

The dispersal of policy function will also fundamentally affect the public interest in terms of national organisations, representative groupsand members of the public who must deal with decentralised locations. There would be a common cause that policy making should not be carried out in a vacuumand policy makers need to talk to core groups, consumer and community groups. Under the new model one has to travel if one wishes to talk to policy makers — for example, if representatives of a fisherman's organisation in Killybegs want to talk about sea fisheries policy, they must now go to Clonakilty, County Cork. Policy determines who gets the money in Irish society.

As another example, the representatives of an inner city community group in Limerick city may wish to talk to staff in a number of Departments, for example, the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, and under the new model they must go to Knock Airport. If at the same time they wish to raise a matter with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, they must go to Wexford and if they wish to raise an educational matter, they must go to Mullingar. From the perspective of consumers and principal client groups, it does not in some cases necessarily make sense to decentralise functions.

It is proposed that the Equality Agency and the Equality Tribunal will relocate in Portarlington and Roscrea, but nobody in those organisations wants to go there. The nature of the service delivered by those organisations is such that they deal with principal client groups and consumers who by and large are in the greater Dublin area, and the logic of trooping down to Portarlington and Roscrea raises issues about whether that is sensible. Some of our members work in the Irish Prison Service in Clondalkin, which is relatively near the prisons in Wheatfield, Cloverhill and Mountjoy, and down the motorway is Portlaoise Prison, whereas the only prison near the proposed new location of Longford is Castlerea Prison. The development aid section of the Department of Foreign Affairs is due to go to Limerick, but its principal client groups are the embassies in Dublin and non-governmental organisations. Our members wonder if it makes sense to move to Limerick.

Turning finally to the people issue, the preliminary results of the central applications facility, CAF, very substantially add to the problem — a schedule has been circulated to members. Let us consider the number in Dublin who wish to transfer to the country with the Department. On average only 7.5% of civil servants from 42 organisation in Dublin wish to move down the country. In the 28 State agencies, only 2% of people working for the agencies in Dublin wish to go down the country. What potentially would that mean? By and large our members would be critically involved in managing this and the issue they raise is whether it makes sense to seek to transfer in the range of 92.5% to 98% of people from 70 organisations in a timeframe of three years. In those circumstances, we are looking for a review of the timetable. Obviously difficulties are created by corporate memory loss, loss of administrative and technical skills, even if replacement numbers could be found. Staff at senior management level who are involved in policy are experts and are not easily replaceable.

I can understand that at clerical officer level, it is easy to replace people, however the skill and expertise of an expert on the Common Agricultural Policy has been built up over a lifetime. If the experts are all taken out together — not many of them want to go to Portlaoise — one may be able to get staff at senior level who are experts on social welfare policy and the application of social welfare schemes to replace them, but it is like comparing apples and oranges. Just because they are civil servants does not mean they are interchangeable. My colleague from IMPACT, Mr. Peter Nolan, will deal with that issue also.

On the human resources issues, we would be delighted to see our members who wish to be decentralised accommodated. It is a pity a survey was not first carried out to get a better match between people willing to go and the locations. We must have regard to the major concerns of members who put their lives into service of the State and see their jobs and careers in Dublin disappearing. This has caused huge upset to them and their families and the position is likely to get substantially worse when the churning process begins. The potential for major staff surpluses in Dublin raises an appalling prospect.

The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants called for a review of the scope and timescale of decentralisation last March and everything we have seen and heard since supports this view. There are major human resource and industrial relations and practical issues which need to be addressed.

I have circulated a letter dated 30 June 2000 addressed to the Department of Finance, putting forward suggestions on a rational and logical way to approach such a fundamental issue as the decentralisation of 10,500 public servants. We also circulated a list showing the preliminary results of the CAF, the number of jobs due to go in the Civil Service across 42 organisations, the number of jobs due to go in the State agencies across 28 organisations and the number of people based in Dublin in the Departments or agencies who are prepared to move with them. In the case of the 28 agencies it averages out at 2% and in the case of the Civil Service it is 7.5%. The overall number of staff required is approximately 10,500. Approximately 3,500 are prepared to leave Dublin so there is a shortfall of 7,000. There are people in other parts of Ireland who want to leave but I am referring specifically to people in Dublin, the relocation of whom, was the primary purpose of this move.

The representatives from the Veterinary Officers Association are not here. They represent about 300 members and we provide a negotiating service for them. I have circulated a brief document prepared by them, which outlines serious policy issues they see in the dispersal of the policy function between Backwestin and Portlaoise. Problems will be created with the location of the new labs in the south of Ireland. There are huge problems for their members as they have jobs that can only be done by vets. They feel coerced into applying for some of the posts. I am sure these professional issues will be dealt with by my colleague, Mr. Peter Nolan.

Chairman

The next presentation will be by Mr. Peter Nolan, National Secretary of IMPACT.

Mr. Peter Nolan

I know it is protocol to start by thanking the committee for meeting the unions, and I sincerely convey that thanks. Since the announcement was made on 3 December last, this is the first opportunity with an organ of the State on the merits or demerits of the decentralisation programme. Any other interaction we have had has been about implementing a programme that has been presented to us without consultation. We express our sincere thanks to the committee for providing this opportunity. We circulated a document this morning with errata in it, confusing this committee with the Scottish Parliament's committee on finance. The correct version is now available to the members.

The committee asked for a description of who we represent and this is vital from IMPACT's point of view. I will use the short-hand term of specialist to represent those professional, technical and departmental grades in the Civil Service, who are not interchangeable with general service grades, as well as those in the State agencies who are unique by virtue of their contract and the skills they acquire. IMPACT has 52,000 members nationally and the vast majority are outside the Dublin area. We do not have a Dublin mindset when we approach these issues. We represent about 1,000 specialists in the Civil Service and 600 specialists in 12 of the 28 State agencies. I want to bring the uniqueness of those specialist grades to the attention of the committee this morning. I have five key messages to convey.

The first message is that specialists are unique. The second is that it is clear from the information, and I do not believe that it can be gainsaid, that specialists are not interested in this move. The third point is that no business case has been made on the move and we need to see that. The fourth point is that we sincerely believe that where there is no interest and where the agencies are heavily dependent on specialist grades, such agencies should be removed from the list. That should not be taken as a negative position because there is evidence, when we analyse the preliminary CAF results, that there are locations such as Carrickmacross and Navan where there is a demand for the take-up. However, that demand is not from the professional grades and the services are heavily reliant upon those. A fifth point is that this issue was politicised at an early stage and we regret that. We would not normally take a political view, but we believe there is a requirement for an independent body to oversee the decentralisation process.

Our union believes that the protection of our members' employment is based on the delivery of efficient and effective public services. We make no apology in dealing with service delivery issues. Specialists are unique because of the disciplines in which they engage. We represent engineers, architects, marine biologists, health and safety officers, air worthiness officers, equality law specialists, heritage experts and policy experts. I acknowledge that in general service grades, people have accumulated experience and that point was well made by the AHCPS. The reality of the position is that these unique specialists are not inter-transferable in any respect, even down to their legal contracts.

What we are facing is a massive number of people who may be surplus to requirements. They are not readily replaceable. Some of the people are hydrocarbon specialists, exploring the marine seabed for our natural resources. They do not fall off trees and are not replaceable in local labour markets. They possess unquantifiable expert skills and knowledge which will be lost to the system if they are deemed to be surplus to requirements. They have a defined vocational link with their employment and they chose to be in the grades they are in. There is a deep sense of outrage among them regarding what they rightly or wrongly see as their posts being taken away from them. Arguments on some of the implementation plans have referred to the importance of these people imparting knowledge to newcomers. I have to indicate a sense of anxiety on that issue. The Irish Government made submissions to a committee of the Scottish Parliament, which cautions against any relocation that involves heavy reliance on professional and specialist grades.

I stated that there is little interest from specialists and I will not labour that point. The CAF figures show that a total of 7.5% in the Civil Service are willing to move with their employment and 2.5 % in the State agencies. We believe the figure is lower for a number of reasons. The figure includes general service grades. There is a problem in the presentation of the figures as they aggregate professionals with the general service grades. I will use the example of Navan, which applies in a number of areas. The requirement of posts in Navan is 102, 78 of which are probation officers, and 99 civil and public service workers want to go to Navan. However, we know from the information supplied by the CAF and the Department of Finance that not one probation officer wants to go to Navan on 6 July. The 99 civil and public service workers do not involve the professionals. We believe that there should be rethinking of the agencies and the locations that are involved. This could have arisen through a survey.

It has been argued by the Government that the position of different unions taken on the CAF has been responsible for the low take-up. I want to scotch that idea. We advised our members to fill out the form and there is no difference between the take-up rate between those unions that advised members to fill out the form and those that did not. There has also been a suggestion that we are lying in wait to see if we can get a better offer. Our survey reveals that the vast majority of specialists do not want to go.

Civil and public servants have been trained to make business cases for the smallest operational changes employed. It has not been done with this proposal. It is probably the biggest reorganisation of the State since its foundation. The AHCPS referred to service delivery that might overlap with us. However, if we take the example of the decentralisation of Development Co-operation Ireland to Limerick, they will have to deal with embassies and NGOs. Parts of the archaeological service in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government were to regionalise around the country. They will now be decentralised to Waterford. The probation service officers who work in Dublin city are being moved to Navan. The Health and Safety Authority, which deals with accidents, the vast majority of which are in the city, is being moved to Kilkenny. The valuer for Donegal, dealing with commercial properties, is being moved to Youghal. These do not make sense and we believe that they should be reviewed immediately.

We note that in the UK, where proposals have been accepted, the Departments involved have been asked to present a business case for moving and staying. That is a useful exercise that could be undertaken. The Minister's statement of 3 December is totally unworkable. It is not a question of extending the timescale but it may be a question of deciding what agencies or units of work are appropriate to those areas where there is a high level of demand. In that sense we called for those areas of high reliance upon professions, specialists in technical areas, to be reviewed in terms of what is appropriate in those circumstances.

It has been determined from our conference — this has been the most sensitive issue we have addressed in the union for many years — that there should be an independent body charged not with the implementation of this programme but with overseeing a Government decentralisation programme. That should include experts capable of analysing the business plan and able to match the demand with the proper service to examine the effects on the services, restore public confidence in the decentralisation policies and, more importantly, protect the taxpayer. We have done some crude figures and the committee can argue with them whatever way it wishes, but nobody else has put figures on a costing of this. Our estimate, based on the 92.5% of specialists, the 1,000 people in the Civil Service who will be untransferable, is that that would burden the taxpayer by between €40 million and €50 million per year, for a considerable period, without any benefit. That is a cost that cannot be borne lightly. It must be remembered these people are not inter-transferable. There are costs from the travel and subsistence arrangements that will apply where people will have to meet officials from other Departments and they will also have to travel to do their day to day job — I remind the committee of the valuer going from Youghal to Donegal.

Clearly we want an extended timescale and we want to remove unworkable proposals from this document. We are open to having them replaced where there are areas of high demand from staff who wish to go.

The submission to the Scottish Parliament was taken directly from the report of the Scottish Parliament committee on finance which discussed its trip to Dublin in October 2003, two months before the announcement was made. It stated that in agreeing the criteria for relocating staff the information received by the Scottish finance committee explained that consultations were held with the Irish Minister for Finance, officials and Departments. In considering the input of the various bodies the Government identified what it deemed to be the main criteria in relation to any decentralisation decisions. I am honing in on one of them now. In this context care would have to be taken to avoid decentralising units with considerable numbers of professional staff or staff with scarce skills for fear such staff would not move and could not be replaced in the new location.

Our final conclusion is that those Government people who are involved in extending that advice should stick to their own advice and ensure we do not relocate services that are highly dependent upon specialist staff.

Chairman

The next presentation is from Mr. Mick Coffey, Joint General Secretary of the Federated Union of Government Employees.

Mr. Mick Coffey

I thank the committee for the opportunity to represent my members in respect of the decentralisation proposals to move 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin. I may be unique today in that I represent the non-clerical grades in the Civil Service. Those grades are service officers, service attendants, court criers, drivers, night watchmen, laboratory attendants and some cleaning grades. Three quarters of our members are based in Dublin. The perception is that when they take up employment in the Civil Service they are interviewed in a Department and remain in that Department throughout their working career. That applies also outside Dublin. My union views the proposed decentralisation of 10,000 civil servants as far too ambitious and impractical.

In respect of the loss of earnings which is the common dominator for all workers, the implications for the grades I represent are many. During the years in which those people are employed in the Civil Service they are in receipt of certain allowances and rostered overtime is a big feature. Members of the committee will be aware that many people who enter Departments on the front line must work late into the night. Overtime in respect of these people is not so much voluntary but compulsory and necessary. There is also the question of one-income earners. Many of those I represent are the only earner in an average family of four and there are implications for the extended family, with possibly adult children still living at home. The first they heard of the announcement some months ago was on the television. They were told that if they wished to retain their jobs and remain in the Department they had served loyally for the past 28 years they would have to take themselves and their families to the other side of Ireland. To say that caused disruption and disillusionment is an understatement. That is a serious problem which is not recognised.

The age group of many of those affected is 40 years and upwards, people with long service. There is also the question of people being rooted in their grades. This is further compounded by the fact that there are limited promotional opportunities, as has been acknowledged in the first phase of the survey in the central applications facility.

The central applications facility resulted in less than 40 expressions of interest. Given that 222 positions are to be filled outside Dublin, how will those positions be filled? Will they be privatised outside Dublin? What method will be used to fill the positions? Will the earnings and conditions of those in Dublin be protected? Certainly that issue is a high priority for our members.

My union is not against all forms of decentralisation and, indeed, has supported and participated in it in the past but we are opposed to whole Departments being moved immediately. That is an insult to those who have given loyal service to a Department over 30 years. When a policy is flawed the Government should be prepared to adjust it. We ask the Government today to reconsider the proposed transfer of whole Departments out of Dublin. Those are the basic thoughts of my members.

Chairman

The next presentation is from Ms Patricia King, Regional Secretary of SIPTU.

Ms Patricia King

I thank the joint committee for the opportunity to make a presentation. SIPTU's representation is exclusive to the State agency sector and it represents approximately 1,359 workers affected by decentralisation. Its membership covers all grades across the spectrum up to senior management level. This membership is spread across 20 agencies some of which are among the most decentralised organisations in the country. For example, FÁS has a presence in most of the smallest towns in the country, Enterprise Ireland has a number of offices throughout the country and the Legal Aid Board has offices in all the towns throughout the country. Decentralisation is not new to us. We support, in principle, balanced regional development.

Key to the proposition in the 2003 budget was an overriding principle of volunteerism. We contend that the proposal denies a voluntary option to our members in the State agency sector. We established that case by indicating that the terms and conditions of employment of State agency workers are devised by a contract of employment between the worker and the State agency concerned. State agency workers are not civil servants and their employer is not the Government, it is the agency for which they directly work. Therefore, we are talking about a variety of employers, not one employer. The legal advice we have taken in this regard indicates that if one removes the place of employment of State agency workers and relocates the agency somewhere else, under the terms of the Redundancy Payments Act, effectively, one dismisses the workers. The Redundancy Payments Act provides that State agency workers can be provided with alternative employment, but once their place of employment is relocated to a place that is inaccessible to them, effectively one dismisses them. That is a serious difficulty for all the workers we represent because before they commence, they are starting from a place of dismissal rather than a place of choice. That is a serious concern for us.

Every agency we represent has a specialist remit. The members of the committee heard Mr. Nolan refer to the issue of specialist areas and the requirement of workers to have specific skills in particular agencies to carry out the remit they have been given. This is done effectively to serve the interests of the State. For example, bodies such as Teagasc, BIM and Fáilte Ireland do that work in more than one location in the State. There is no transferability between workers in State agencies and civil servants. Attempts have been made down through the years in certain circumstances for particular exigencies that occurred to try to marry civil servants and public servants. From the experience of our members that was a bad exercise because it resulted in two groups of people employed under two different terms and conditions who were expected to work in the one place to deliver the same service. They were not happy campers. We explained all this during the course of discussions we have had.

It is important to understand that State agency workers, as Mr. Nolan and other contributors outlined, seek and agree to be employed by an agency to do a particular job. There is no culture of transferability and no expectation or aspiration by our members in that regard. I argue that is substantiated by virtue of the fact that the service profile in any of these agencies shows very few people moving to other jobs. The profile is strong in terms of thenumber of people with a long service record in the agencies. There is no culture of workers transferring from the State agencies.

The Department of Finance has spent years advising people like myself who represent State agencies — I bear some of those scars — that the agencies have no relationship with the Civil Service, that we should not pretend that the State agency workers own something that Civil Service workers own because they do not. Experts in the Department of Finance have taken that approach for years. As time progressed we developed an expertise in how to answer them, but I will not tell members that the exchange bore a great deal of logic. That game has been played for years between the two sectors. Nobody was more surprised than myself when I heard the announcement and noted that a big broad brush was being used to involve the two lots. Somebody had a transformation in terms of his or her thinking in this regard because we have had this battle for years.

Our membership believed that decentralisation, the way it was announced and so on, is a fait accompli, that people have no choice and that this is how matters will be. There was no engagement or process of discussion. It should be understood that our negotiations are conducted with the employers in the State agency concerned. We have had to battle very hard anytime we wanted to get an audience with a official in a Department. When we sought to do so we were clearly told that we are not the employer, that the Department does not talk directly to the unions, that we should not think that we have a route in the door because we do not and that our negotiating rights are with the State agencies. However, the State agencies as employers have no remit on the issue of decentralisation. From their point of view there is no point in sitting in and engaging in discussion because they did not know anything. The State staff in these agencies feel let down by that. There is no question in our view, and we wholeheartedly support the points made by IMPACT and others, that the interest in the State agencies is virtually nil. There is no interest in them.

We advise those we represent in regard to CAF and their non-participation in it. I am probably being risqué in saying this but certain public pronouncements in the recent past by people interested in this matter have indicated that people did not participate in this facility because the unions told them not to. Those comments have probably given the unions more credit than they deserve in this regard. I know these agencies well having worked with them for years. My strong view is that the workers in these agencies have made up their own minds beyond doubt that they have no interest in moving and will not volunteer to move. That underpins the difficulty that exists. Our point is underpinned by the employers’ surveys of their employees in this regard.

Some play has been made of the fact that this union boycotted the CAF process but we did it for good reason. We sincerely believe that it is not a voluntary process. I have outlined some of the legal difficulty caused by it for our members. There were no circumstances of which we could think where we should advise people to become involved in putting themselves forward for transfer to a situation which would effectively leave them jobless with no indication or assurance in any shape or form as to what their alternative employment would be, where it would be and what they would be doing. There were no circumstances that we could find whereby we could advise our people to participate in CAF or have any interest in it. I believe our members boycotted it based on an informed decision.

The results of the CAF process tell their own story. For example, table 24 shows that out of 2,249 jobs in State agencies to be decentralised only 46 employees from Dublin have opted to follow their jobs. That probably says enough to underpin the viewpoint that there is virtually no interest in the process. Only 53 people from Dublin and elsewhere out of the total have expressed an interest to redeploying within their agency and as few as 141 workers in the State agencies in the whole country have expressed an interest in relocating.

We believe the process, as proposed, is unsuitable to the State agency sector and lacks coherence. We are not aware of any worked-out business rationale that has been advanced to support the proposals that the State agencies should be involved in the plan in the manner proposed. We are firmly of the view that little thought has been given to the impact on the service provided by these agencies and if they are decentralised in the manner proposed there will be a diminution in the service they provide to the State and its citizens. Therefore, the consequences have not been worked out in a realistic way. If the plan were to go ahead as currently proposed, the corporate memory and skills loss and the brain drain that would occur would totally undermine the specialist nature of these agencies. It would take decades to reinsert all the skills, memory and brain power to rebuild those agencies. Leaving aside the fact that all the people who do not go must be re-employed elsewhere, surely the Government expects there would be a skills match somewhere in terms of where they were placed. We have heard absolutely nothing about that, however.

We have fundamental legal and contractual problems, which of themselves present an impediment to the proposals. Therefore, we think the wisest thing is for the proposals as set out to be abandoned for the State agencies, for all the reasons we have outlined.

Chairman

The next presentation will be from Mr. John Tierney, the National Secretary of AMICUS.

Mr. John Tierney

I thank you, Chairman, and the committee for allowing us to make a presentation. I will be brief because most of the points have already been made. I will restrict myself to some key matters. AMICUS represents the professional staff in State agencies. In the agencies directly listed for decentralisation there are 400 people directly or indirectly affected. AMICUS has normally gone along with most Government decentralisation policies for two reasons, one, they were voluntary and, two, they were carried out at a pace and in a manner that did not compromise the efficiency of the public service. We cannot go along with the current proposals, however. The whole big bang approach is deeply flawed in many respects. It is indiscriminate, it contravenes important public policy objectives and the timescale is unrealistic.

AMICUS represents public servants who are mostly employed in highly specialised public service agencies, such as Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Energy Centre, the National Standards Authority, the Central Fisheries Board, BIM etc. These are largely staffed by highly qualified professional people such as scientists, economists and engineers who work in small, highly skilled, interdisciplinary teams. If they were to be relocated or broken up, and some or part of the teams did not transfer, the teams would be severely compromised and would not function until others were recruited and trained to do those jobs. There is, therefore, an inefficiency involved.

The largest number of universities, private sector operations and companies are in the greater Dublin area. As regards the conflict with policy objectives, one of the primary objectives to ensure high levels of sustainable growth and development over the coming two decades is the implementation of the national spatial strategy. The strategy is built around 20 centres or gateways located for growth. These centres are based on careful planning and input from expert groups. Under the current proposal there are 50 centres, which flies in the face of the national spatial strategy.

We urge the committee to re-examine the entire decentralisation scheme in terms of its scope and timescale and, therefore, ensure that the scheme is subordinate to the overall goals of greater public service efficiency and consistent with the national spatial strategy.

Chairman

The final presentation is from Mr. Roger Hannon, Irish Secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association.

Mr. Roger Hannon

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association, TSSA, the union for people in transport and travel which represents a majority of the salaried staff grades employed throughout the country by the CIE group of companies, including Bus Éireann, which to our concern has been incorporated in the decentralisation programme announced by the Minister for Finance in December 2003. Bus Éireann, which is in effect the country's national bus company, is a constituent operating company of the CIE group created by the Transport (Reorganisation of Coras Iompair Éireann) Act 1986.

The TSSA members in the company include bus inspectors, garage foremen, clerical grades, technical staff, executive officers, management grades and senior executive staff. Only the Bus Éireann element of the decentralisation programme concerns our association. In that regard, the proposal in respect of Bus Éireann is to transfer 200 Bus Éireann staff from their present location in Dublin to Mitchelstown in County Cork. The word "transfer" is emphasised because the proposal for Bus Éireann could not be construed as decentralisation in the proper sense, given in particular the regionalisation structure of the company as outlined in paragraph 14 of my paper in page 2. To date, the TSSA has been unable to elicit either from the Department of Finance or the Department of Transport what precisely is intended by the proposal, given that only 80 to 90 staff in Dublin, mainly employed in the company's head office premises in Broadstone, work in central services and support functions. In addition, not all of these could be decentralised in any practical sense.

Any other Bus Éireann staff working in Dublin are employed to provide the company's bus services within the greater Dublin area. Unlike other Departments and, indeed, the agencies being decentralised, Bus Éireann is a commercial semi-State company operating in a highly competitive market environment. Although this would be expected in best practice, no research, planning or analysis in respect of the proposed transfer to Mitchelstown was undertaken. There is no business case which can be formulated to justify the transfer of the head office functions and staff specifically to the Mitchelstown locality. With no disrespect whatever to that location and the people living there, it is our deeply held conviction that no business person or company would choose Mitchelstown as a suitable head office site for a bus company servicing the entire country.

Senator O’Toole

It is very good for pig farming down there.

Mr. Hannon

The TSSA accepts that arguments can be offered to justify a move from the present Broadstone location to an appropriate provincial head office site, provided the move is the subject of a thorough business plan and implementation scheme. The TSSA's constant position has been, and remains, that Bus Éireann is a business and, as a commercial semi-State company, cannot in logic be aligned in terms of necessary geographical relocation with that which is appropriate or applicable to the Civil Service, Departments and agencies.

In any event, as mentioned previously in paragraph 5 of my paper, Bus Éireann is already decentralised in that it operates through an area structure as follows: the Tralee area has 111 staff; Cork, the biggest area, has 560 staff; Waterford has 226; Dublin, 442; Dundalk, 225; Sligo, 274; Galway, 246; Limerick, 378; and Athlone, 149. In addition, there are 78 staff working in the head office in Broadstone, Dublin 7. These include one managing director, one manager business development, one manager — human resources, one manager — finance and accounting, one chief mechanical engineer, one assistant chief mechanical engineer, one manager — communication, one manager — employee relations, one manager — personnel, one manager — projects, one manager — procurement, one manager — sales and marketing, one manager — business systems, one manager — customer services, one manager — school transport, one manager — risk and safety, two managers — accounting, one manager — network and information services, one manager — operations support, one assistant accountant, one manager — accounting services, one manager — media and public relations, four mechanical engineers, 17 executive officers, 21 staff officers and 19 clerical officers. Only one member of the TSSA has expressed an interest in transferring to Mitchelstown.

A Deputy

Is he a pig farmer?

Mr. Hannon

A meeting of our Broadstone headquarters members endorsed a motion indicating that they are not interested in transferring anywhere and wish to exercise their option to remain voluntarily in Dublin in their current jobs. Notwithstanding that, the posts of 77 of our members, not including senior positions in the company's management, were advertised on the CAF website. Despite the TSSA's insistence that its members' jobs should be removed from the website, that demand has not been acceded to yet. The preliminary advice from the CAF is that ten provincially-based civil servants are seeking a transfer to Mitchelstown, which is the proposed location for Bus Éireann.

Bus Éireann's decentralisation implementation plan states that the process of decentralisation depends on the number of employees who volunteer to transfer, but no employees have expressed such a wish. That poses a serious risk to the company's continuity of business. The company's management has also said that the mitigation of that risk can only be effected by recruiting a new management team and training all concerned on a one-to-one basis, thereby extending the necessary timescale to not less than ten years. In the conclusion to its document, the company specifies that without the transfer of a majority of the employees, the process will be extremely risky, costly and capable of being effected only on a long-term basis.

The TSSA's assessment is that the proposal is based on incorrect facts. It is illogical because it equates semi-State companies with public service or Civil Service Departments or agencies. It is ill-conceived and unplanned. It will have a detrimental effect on the companies' business. It is likely to undermine employment. It will be of marginal benefit to the proposed locations. It should be withdrawn forthwith.

Senator O’Toole

I am disappointed the Deputy from Mitchelstown was not here to hear Mr. Hannon's contribution.

Chairman

I thank speakers for the wide variety of presentations which were made. I suggest that we adjourn for a maximum of 20 minutes for a cup of coffee or tea. We will return for a general debate in 20 minutes.

Sitting suspended at 11.30 a.m. and resumed at 11.55 a.m.

Chairman

I propose some arrangements for the second half of this morning's meeting. The opening speakers after presentations were made in yesterday's meeting were from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I propose to give the Labour Party spokesman ten minutes to make some comments and to ask a specific question or two. I will then move on to the representatives of the Technical Group before asking the delegations to respond. Such a procedure would be better than going over and back for the whole day. We will take two groups before moving on to Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Independent members. We will take a few contributions together.

Senator O’Toole

No, Independents are——

Chairman

I mentioned Independent members separately.

Senator O’Toole

I thank the Chair.

Deputy R. Bruton

How many seconds will the Independents be given?

Senator O’Toole

Independent of all others. These are my constituents.

Chairman

I thought the Senator was elected by graduates of the NUI.

Senator O’Toole

They think that.

Chairman

If members are directing questions to a particular union, I ask them to mention the union in question. I do not believe that every member will have questions for every union. I ask our witnesses to take note if questions are specifically directed to them. Is there agreement from our guests to publish the documents they have presented to the committee today? Can they be made available to the media? I have to get clearance on that from the delegations. I take it that it is agreed. Before I call Deputy Seán Ryan, I again ask members to keep to the ten minute limit. We do not want the meeting to continue for too long.

Deputy S. Ryan

This morning's discussion was an important element of the decentralisation process. As a result, it is clear that we need to consider those who provide a service within the country, most importantly, as well as the issue of proper regional development. It was clear this morning that there was a lack of consultation from the outset. If one were to analyse all the reports and submissions, one would find that not one organisation, trade union or association present today is opposed to decentralization per se. The issue is how to bring it about in the interests of the general community.

The Labour Party believes the decentralisation of public services can be beneficial but only if carried out in a meaningful and properly planned manner. Simply moving Departments to different locations will not achieve the decision making processes we require or meet the need to bring decision making closer to the community and empower local communities, an aim to which all of us would aspire.

Are citizens closer to the decision making process because a Department is located in Kilkenny or Portlaoise rather than Dublin? Do they have readier access to services as a result? The decision making process remains just as remote and responsive to clients needs as when it was in Dublin, with the added disadvantage that communities will have become more difficult and trained staff will be lost to the relevant services as a result of the move. This is the core of the issue.

We have been told decentralisation will take place on a voluntary basis, regardless of whether a technical body or employees based in Dublin are involved. Job and promotion opportunities and the effect on employees' income must be addressed and the best people to assess these matters are the representatives of those working in the public service.

One approach to the decentralisation of public services has worked, namely, the dispersal of selected executive operations of central Departments to large towns or cities. Examples of this are the transfer of the pensions office to Sligo and the Collector General's office to Limerick. The driving force behind such moves is not the greater efficiency of the public service but the need to counter the growth of Dublin. While this is a legitimate aim, projects must be implemented in a planned, thought out manner. The development of counter weights to Dublin must be undertaken as part of a national spatial strategy and this means the towns selected for decentralisation projects should be regional hubs or gateways. Transfers also need to be effected in a manner which respects the legitimate interests of staff and avoids excessive loss of qualified and trained personnel. This is very important in the context of the current proposals.

The scheme announced in the previous budget does not fulfil these criteria. The selection of towns has no obvious logic other than electoral advantage. Decisions were taken before any meaningful consultations with staff had taken place. In addition, no proper assessment or planning has been carried out. This is evident in the fact that the Government is already backing off from the scheme on the grounds that the proposal originally announced will not be possible in the short or medium term. It is interesting that now that the Minister for Finance has been pushed off the local scene to Europe, many Government spokespersons have come out of the woodwork and expressed opposition to the proposals or stated they will not work. Trade union officials could have told them that earlier.

Where will we go from the current position the Government allowed to develop? There is no doubt there is demand for decentralisation. The process can be meaningful if carried out in a proper and planned manner in the context of partnership.

Many of today's witnesses stated that this is an industrial relations issue and they would not get involved in political matters. The movement of staff and the provision of services in communities is too important to be decided solely on the basis of political advantage. The sooner this message is heard, the better. We must all work in a meaningful way to bring about the type of decentralisation we all want.

We hear people from the towns identified as locations for decentralisation speaking on the issue. It is easy to demand one's share of the benefits of decentralisation but if it is not carried out in a planned manner, with proper locations selected and consultations on protecting jobs, it will not succeed. The skills accumulated over the years must be taken into consideration and the process must not undermine governance. International reports show that the argument in favour of moving all Departments, including all decision makers, out of Dublin into the regions is not sustainable. The proposition does not stand up to logic.

Mr. Coffey referred to his members on low incomes and one-income families, many of whom have few opportunities for advancement or promotion and noted that decentralisation could affect overtime allowances and so forth. In this context, he stated that moving all his members out of Dublin would have a detrimental effect.

The perception given by the Government is that relocation will take place on a voluntary basis. We have been notified, however, that pressure has been applied, particularly to those employed in technical roles, to the effect that if they do not accept what is on offer, their position will be advertised and they will lose promotion opportunities. This is an important matter. To what extent has pressure been applied at local level to try to get people to relocate? It has certainly not been successful according to returns to date.

Mr. Hannon of the TSSA made an interesting contribution on the transfer of his members from Broadstone. In the same situation, his members' positions were advertised. What has been achieved to date to try and get that regularised, given the question of volunteerism? I also put that question to other delegation members. What would be the cost to the State of retraining people who would not want to go for family reasons or otherwise?

I was involved to a certain extent in industrial relations negotiations. From the outset, the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, said there would not be anything on offer apart from the jobs. Would offering the carrot of promotions or lump sum payments have an effect on the attitude to decentralisation?

From the outset the Labour Party has stated its total opposition to the decentralisation process outlined by the Government. We will fight it tooth and nail. We are in favour of decentralisation in a properly planned manner. The contributions this morning were well presented and helpful. The Minister and the Government should take note.

Deputy Morgan

I also thank the representatives of the various unions for their comprehensive presentations. I am not a committee member, but am deputising for Deputy Ó Caoláin.

The committee has done a major service by bringing together these representatives to debate the issue for the first time. By and large, what we heard this morning was a damning indictment of the Government's proposal. Perhaps it was a solo run by the Minister for Finance, but in any event, it has been shredded by many of the contributors.

I understand from my colleague, Deputy Ferris, who was here yesterday, that the perception arose that there was somehow a rural-urban divide among committee members on the issue of relocation-decentralisation. That is not the case. If there is a division, it is along the lines of the Government and Opposition, not rural and urban. Of the five Sinn Féin Members, two are from Dublin, two are from the Border counties and one is from Munster and there is no disagreement between us on this issue. However, we have difficulty with it in terms of its planning, organisation and preparation.

We should, perhaps, nail one point now; it is relocation not decentralisation. For us to call it that misleads everybody. We have had pronouncements from various Ministers, particularly Deputy Noel Dempsey, when he was Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and latterly, Deputy Cullen, the current Minister in that Department, in regard to local government powers. They took powers away from local government, particularly in regard to issues like waste management plans, striking a rate and county development plans. Power has been taken from elected members and given to county managers. The Government has been quite dishonest on this issue.

The issue appears to have been a pre-election stunt aimed at the local and European elections in the hope that some of it could be implemented before the next general election from which the Government would reap some benefit. It is somewhat ironic that the person who made the announcement may be the only one to be relocated — in this case to Brussels — by the time of the next general election. None of us will shed too many tears for him.

Were any costings carried out in terms of the detail of the proposal? For example, disruption money could cost in the region of €5,000 per civil servant and, if that were the case, we would be talking about a total of €50 million. That would raise other questions as to how many people would actually be affected.

Was there any consultation between the Government and unions between 1999 and the 2004 budget announcement? Was it ever suggested that an initial survey, as stated by some members, would have been useful? Was there ever a suggestion that such an initial survey would be carried out to ascertain what proportion of civil servants would wish to move and to where? When the Minister for Finance was questioned in the Dáil on these issues, he constantly referred to ongoing discussions. I would be pleased if anybody could tell me what those ongoing discussions were, who they were with and what was the result of them.

Can any of the union representatives shed any light on the number of union members that may be affected? For example, we have heard the shenanigans around the whole Mitchelstown and Dublin Bus debacle where they cannot even count people. They were talking about 200. I would like to deal with that some more but I am under pressure for time as I have less than a minute left.

Will Ms King from SIPTU tell me how many agency workers might be affected? Does she have a ballpark figure?

Mr. Nolan from IMPACT expressed concern about the proposal to move 100 probation officers out of the Dublin area. What are his concerns in that regard? Would he also allude to the shenanigans around the probation office at Donaghmede which was subject to an inquiry by the Committee of Public Accounts? If the service is relocated, will all that money be gone down the drain? The sum of money concerned is substantial.

Deputy Connolly

I could not help but observe the amount of laughter that erupted from Deputies and the audience when we were discussing Dublin Bus. Is that how people also see the decentralisation programme?

At times we are asked to speculate or comment in regard to decentralisation in local media. The unions today echoed the type of comments made by Deputies in local media. We were ridiculed, accused of scaremongering and making the issue a political football. We were told to give it a chance. We were also told to look at previous examples of decentralisation such as the relocation of the Department of Social and Family Affairs to Sligo and the Department of Agriculture and Food to Cavan. Will the unions comment on that? Government parties, in particular, will say these things all happened very successfully in the past. Are we now dealing with problems that did not exist at that time?

If the timescale were changed from three years to ten years is it more likely that we would have a successful decentralisation programme? I would welcome comments on that.

I have a brief question for Ms King from SIPTU. At the end of the group's submission she made reference to the fact that members were advised not to co-operate in any way with the working party groups, project teams or whatever. Is that not a little unfair to union members? Are unions suppressing members who wish to relocate? I think the unions are getting it right but I would appreciate a comment in that regard.

Unions have also said they would not rule out a demand for industrial action if some agencies move ahead without consultation. Is that likely to happen? Will they push ahead with the process regardless?

Deputy Twomey

The political implications of the plan as announced are significant, especially in constituencies outside Dublin. FUGE has concerns for its members, but they are mostly Dublin based. In rural areas people want decentralisation because they see it as having major benefits for their areas. Yesterday we had a presentation from the Laois Chamber of Commerce. When discussing the feasibility of the decentralisation initiative, one of the witnesses stated that media reports of low voluntary take-up, the Opposition parties' lack of support — which is rubbish because many of us do support it — local election issues and the cost factors could be the death knell of this initiative. This is how people feel about the programme outside Dublin.

Nobody has mentioned the fact that the Government may not have thought this plan out clearly before it decided to implement it. If we consider the area of specialist services, according to Mr. Nolan there are at least ten constituencies that will not see decentralisation because the figures for specialists are so low. These include Claremorris, Kanturk, Fermoy, Shannon and Waterford. Ms King has pointed out that of the 2,249 employees of State agencies that are destined for decentralisation, only 141 have any interest in going. I fully understand the meaning of professionalism and specialisation in terms of the jobs these people do. There is certainly no possibility of taking people from somewhere else and retraining them in three or four months to do specialised jobs. The point being made by Mr. Nolan is that the people of any place that expects to receive a State agency might as well forget about it now because it is just not feasible. Then there is the human element, as pointed out by some of the witnesses. Families may not want to change their lifestyles at present.

Yesterday, when we had some presentations on these issues, the overall feeling towards the plan of decentralisation was negative, apart from the witnesses from the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, who felt that its service improved after the office moved to Limerick. We must wait until September before the Minister can come here and explain this to us. As pointed out, we may have a different Minister, and I am not sure whether another person from his Department could explain the basis of the programme. It is a little like benchmarking. Perhaps all the files have been destroyed so we must rely on hearsay.

It should be made clear that we are trying to sell this idea. I am selling it in Wexford by trying to encourage chambers of commerce to come together and convincing civil servants that they can have a great life in County Wexford. Now I am being told that nobody in the wide world is interested in relocating and that even if they were, the people we really need cannot move. I am told that if the programme goes ahead it will destroy the integrity and professionalism of the Civil Service. These are serious accusations, especially when it is a matter of Government policy.

Chairman

I will allow answers according to the sequence in which the organisations are mentioned and then I will allow others to respond. Deputy Ryan had a question for Mr. Coffey. I ask respondents to keep their answers brief because there will be another round of questions from Deputies and some of them may overlap.

Mr. Mick Coffey

One of the questions raised was that of loss of earnings. The average loss of earnings for some of my members will be in the region of €150 per week. My members may be easy-going but they are not suicidal. I do not think they would volunteer to move outside Dublin if they were to incur such a loss. They have enjoyed these earnings for the past 20 years, if one can call it enjoyment — they have survived on them. In the initial survey there are two promotional opportunities for 1,300 members. I do not call that an incentive — it is an insult.

A question was asked about pockets of decentralisation. We have supported the Revenue Commissioners. They did not move the operations at Dublin Castle down to Castlebar — I do not wish to be derogatory about Castlebar. We support that policy. However, it would be crazy if staff in the OPW, where I have 40 members, or in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, where I have 30 members who are service officers, were told that their jobs were no longer in Dublin and they must go to the other end of the country and bring their families with them. How could we support that type of policy? I do not think the decision was well thought out, particularly from the point of view of my members.

Chairman

Deputies Connolly and Twomey made reference to SIPTU so I will ask Ms King to reply to their points.

Ms King

There was a question about numbers. We have approximately 1,359 members across 20 agencies. All grades are represented, from the lower grades to the managerial grades, in the State agencies. We have no remit in the Civil Service.

To deal with the issue raised by Deputy Connolly, there is a fundamental point we are making which I believe needs to be understood by all: civil servants and public servants or State agency workers are entirely different beings in terms of their employment status. Let us take Fáilte Ireland as an example. A decision has been made that the location for its workers should be in Mallow but the majority of them work in Dublin. They have had no part in the decision, which was not even made by their organisation but handed down without consultation. Under the terms and conditions of their contracts of employment, if their employment moves and is inaccessible to them — in other words, if they cannot go to work any more — they are, under the terms of the law of the land, redundant. They are dismissed. That is a fact.

It is different for civil servants, who have one employer, the Government. They have many understandings and agreements about mobility, flexibility and so on which do not apply to public servants. All these State agencies have different terms and conditions. Their conditions are set out in the contract with their employers, but they are not all the same. There is no transferability between agencies. The agencies are single entities and there is no commonality in their terms and conditions. Once the employment is moved, the workers are redundant. That takes away the principle of voluntarism. An agency worker knows that if her job is in Mallow she must go there.

I agree with the points made by some Deputies. Let us take as an example the EPA, which is in Wexford. It has a presence in Dublin and in Wexford, which has worked very well. This union is not saying this cannot be dealt with in a planned, progressive way in the future. However, we cannot say it is a voluntary programme and then sack 1,300 people. We cannot tell them we do not know what their choices are or what their terms and conditions will be. We cannot tell them we will dispense with the skills they have used in an organisation for the last 30 or 40 years. The State has invested much money in these people, allowing them to develop the skills they have. We cannot ignore this, send them all down to Mallow and tell those people who do not go that we will find somewhere to put them. They do not know where they will be placed or what their terms will be. They now have no employer and they do not know who will employ them or on what basis. That stretches the meaning of the word "voluntary" beyond what is acceptable.

Our members' view was not militant. They simply stated that they must protect themselves. They must ask what protection they will have as employees if they start airing interests in this transfer process. The legal advice we obtained and the view we conveyed to our members was that they are not protected. If one goes or expresses an interest, under the terms of the legislation one does not have protection and can be sacked. Neither I nor any of my colleagues could disregard that. This is not an anti-decentralisation view. State agencies are located in towns all over the State. How, for example, could the Legal Aid Board or FÁS be decentralised any further? They are present in every town, and even villages surrounding towns have a FÁS presence. What is the logic of doing that? The fundamental issue is that it is not voluntary and there are significant obstacles for our members who are not civil servants and do not have similar protections.

Mr. Nolan

I will start by responding to Deputy Twomey. One characteristic of this issue is that an announcement was made on high with no planning. People have responded to that and adopted a proposal when it comes to their town. Presenting it in the tone of "it is my way or the highway" has not created the environment for analysis of an issue. Some people are interested in decentralising. We have not told our members not to go; they have told us they are not interested. As I said at the outset, ours is one of the most decentralised unions in the country, in that it represents staff in the Department of Agriculture and Food, in the Revenue Commissioners, Wexford County Council and the South Eastern Health Board, and it supports decentralisation. This should be achieved, however, by systematic planning, not by putting pins in the paper as if choosing a runner in the Grand National, and deciding to move people accordingly. If we want systematic, organised and planned decentralisation that will deliver to the communities in which our members work, it must be done systematically.

It is not my fault that the specialists in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government have chosen not to move to the south eastern region. If there is a need for movement to the south eastern region it must be planned. Previous decentralisation of the Land Registry was problematic because it involved professionals and technical experts and there are fewer people in that area engaged in the Civil Service because of the traditional industrial base in Waterford. That is part of the planning that should be applied to the issues before we reach the objective which we all share. As Deputy Sean Ryan said, everyone here favours balanced economic and social development. We cannot deliver that unless we plan for it.

Unfortunately, the manner in which it has been announced has put civil servants who want to question the merits and demerits of the programme under a cloud because questioning it is deemed to be akin to treason. That is why I value this exchange. There should be dialogue with chambers of commerce to explain that the Government's proposal as planned might lead to their towns not receiving a decentralised office. Were it revised and discussed we could consider whether towns where there is a demand are appropriate for service delivery. That is the point, and not the false divide on whether we are in favour of the programme. We have been forced into taking that line because of the way the programme was presented, which suggests a weakness of conviction about the capacity to deliver this programme. As a result people clam up and will not entertain any criticism of it whatsoever. The message that will emerge from this meeting is that some of this is feasible with amendment, discussion and dialogue and some is unworkable. The task is to analyse that and move forward to see what can be delivered to those constituencies in terms of balanced economic and social development.

Deputy Seán Ryan raised the question of costs. We have put a cost of €40 million and €50 million on keeping the surplus-to-requirement professional and specialist staff in Dublin for a year. There will not be one iota of productivity for the taxpayer as they will be idle. That is an estimate and we can explore the underlying hypothesis in detail now or later. We have no estimate for travel and subsistence but if Departments are split up and my friend the valuer from Youghal is to cover Donegal there will be a major exponential increase in costs. I fear there is a weakness in the background analysis and people are afraid to enter into dialogue about that and about training, duplication and contracts. We have been told that there is advanced work on contracts for the purchase of buildings and land. That does not make good sense until we are sure that the positions are viable. If they are viable with the existing agencies or with alternatives, there is no problem but we advocate avoiding an increase in costs to the taxpayer.

Deputy Morgan referred to ongoing discussions with unions which is important. All the discussions have been to tell us when it will be implemented, not to seek our views. Implementation is the big word. There are implementation liaison officers in the Departments and an implementation group but nobody is analysing the value and merit of the programme.

In response to Deputy Connolly, an extended timescale is vital but allied to that is the need to ensure that we identify now those which are not viable in the hope of substituting or providing alternatives for them. Timescale is not the only issue because there is also the need to examine what services are realistic and viable and to move to an early decision on those.

Mr. Ó Riordáin

This proposal is not just coercive at times in respect of professional or technical grades but also in respect of the general service grades, from my experience. Ours was one of the first associations to produce a detailed and well-reasoned document which suggested a rational approach to decentralisation, the key to which was the need to review its scope and timescale. In addition, we spoke about the need to do cost impact analyses and so on. At the time it was almost regarded as treasonable to begin to ask questions. We were told it was Government policy and that our job was to implement it.

I will not apologise to anybody. I have spent 39 years in public service, 20 of those in the Department of the Taoiseach. The people I represent are involved in the management of the public service. We will raise reasonable questions in the public interest. I have attended meetings with people who say the climate in their Departments is such that if they do not apply to move to Dundalk or Newbridge they do not know what will happen them and they feel they must do it. They do not particularly want to do it. A climate has been created in which one is told this is happening and if one does not comply one will have no job. It is not confined to the professional and technical staff.

Where does the public interest lie? That is the real issue. It is not about civil servants and what they want, or local communities and what they want. The real issue is the public interest. To answer that one must first ask what is the role of central Government. Devolving powers to the local authorities is a matter for the political system but that is not the issue here. This programme concerns the transfer of central Government functions around the country, but does that make sense? In this forum, and elsewhere, we have raised issues that touch on that. Those questions need to be addressed, whether the transfer of central policy functions for a range of Departments, or the business case for moving agencies and sections of Departments down the country. The latter is a key issue which is not confined to State agencies. One response must be to ask who are the principal client groups. If a Department's principal client groups are discommoded by transferring to the far reaches of the country, should one go ahead with the programme? Who is being inconvenienced? The logical and rational way to approach this was to do what the unions suggested. We suggested that essentially a survey should be carried out to find out where the interest is. At the same time, there should be a separate look at the locations. Then a decision could be made on the rational choice of locations. We also proposed to look at what agencies were to be transferred, the costs and effects on central Government services. We even proposed the publication of a discussion paper in advance. We have seen consultants' reports and discussion documents published for more minor items than decentralisation.

This is the most fundamental change in public administration since the foundation of the State and it should be done in a logical, rational and considered way. I have no objection, nor do my members, to decentralisation. I would love to see people facilitated. If I had a choice myself I would be down at Fethard-on-Sea. I hope my wife, who is on holiday there, wishes I was there too.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

What about Mitchelstown?

Mr. Ó Riordáin

The only way to move people on a voluntary basis is to survey them in advance, balance it all and produce a document on the process. At the same time, a climate must be created where it is legitimate for civil servants to articulate their concerns regarding public interest in the delivery of services. They should not be accused of intruding into the political domain. The decision that is being taken has put us in a situation we did not want to be in. However, we would be failing in our duty if we did not raise these questions.

The problems with the programme are the way the decision was taken and the lack of real consultation. There were no attempts to match locations with the people who may want to leave Dublin, the needs of local communities and where the public interest lies in terms of central Government.

Mr. Geraghty

Deputy Morgan asked if it has ever been suggested that a survey be carried out after the Minister's initial announcement in 1999. The answer, as Mr. Ó Riordáin said, is "yes". Within weeks of the Minister's announcement, the PSEU made that proposal to the Department of Finance. We said that if this thing was to happen on a logical basis, it ought to be tailored to the wishes of the people who will be affected by it. It makes sense to conduct a survey to find out who wants to go, how many and where. The PSEU went further and suggested that unless the Department of Finance was prepared to do that, we were not going to engage in a charade of alleged discussions which would be used as a smoke-screen. Unfortunately, since the Government did not take up this suggestion, we withdrew from any discussion process with the Department of Finance. Unless we knew how many people were interested in going, there clearly was no point in us continuing to participate.

Deputy Seán Ryan reminded me of something that has gained ground in recent weeks and needs to be addressed. There is a perception among some sections of the media that this is all about money for our members. I admit we are dealing with this as an industrial relations issue. There is a perception that all industrial relations issues can be resolved by throwing money at them. However, this is the one occasion when that is most definitely not the case. For those who are interested in decentralising, they will go because that is what they wish to do. It is a lifestyle choice of where they want to live and work other than in Dublin and is not about money. For those who do not want to go, having made their lives in Dublin with no intention of living and working anywhere else, money is not going to be an inducement to get them to go. This needs to be made clear. It is not like a normal industrial relations situation where we position ourselves in order to deliver money to our members. Though that is the type of business we are normally in, this is not one of those situations.

Deputy Connolly asked if the programme would be more successful if the timescale was changed. This is not about timescale. No one had any serious expectations that the full programme as announced by the Government could possibly be delivered within the timeframe set out. Recent speculation that the timescale might be lengthened does not change the situation one way or another. It is about people and tailoring a programme to meet their wishes. However long that takes is really irrelevant.

What is needed is clarity. The difficulty we have in dealing with this situation is that there are so many questions being asked of us by our members, yet we are not in a position to give them answers. People are unsure about what the programme means for them. What will happen to them if they choose not to decentralise? Where will they end up and what work will they be doing? What implications will this have for them in their future careers? When will the programme happen? These are all important and fundamental questions to our members.

Ms Rosaleen Glacken

We must accept that there is a Government decision on decentralisation. We initially argued after the decision was announced that the Department of Finance should set up an application system to identify those who wanted to go and those who did not. The central applications facility has given us this information. We know the possibilities of areas that can be decentralised but the central applications facility system has also identified, both within the Civil Service and semi-State companies, where the problem areas now lie. If we are to be constructive, both the unions and this committee, we must now bring this forward. One committee member said that some of the areas announced in the decentralisation programme will work from information from the central applications facility. However, there are real difficulties with the semi-State area and the Government will have to re-examine this.

The Civil Service has identified 39 different locations. A Deputy identified Claremorris and Wexford as some of these areas. We need to make a distinction between general service grades which are interchangeable across Departments and specialist grades which are not interchangeable. Then there are semi-State sector grades which are not interchangeable with other agencies. The Government will have to address these issues before we move forward. The Civil Service identified 39 locations and the committee should compare this with the graph we have submitted. There are too many clerical and supervisory grades, which our union represents, looking to go to half of the 39 locations announced. If this committee wishes to be constructive in the conclusions to its deliberations, it must identify the areas where it is possible to commence the decentralisation process because there are significant numbers who wish to move out of Dublin. It must then identify the areas where there are significant problems and seek to address those issues by some other means, which have been set out by the unions.

Chairman

Does Mr. Hannon or Mr. Tierney wish to make any specific response?

Mr. Tierney

I will emphasise a point made by Patricia King of SIPTU. We have a difficulty with the State agencies. If a person's job moves to Shannon, and the person does not follow, that person no longer has a job. The person's job is terminated. There is no option there, regardless of the economic criteria. There is also a backlash among the members. Some people have dual incomes with a partner working in either the public or private sector. In such cases, moving is not an option. Nor can people in sending children to university in Dublin keep two homes. There is an economic problem that can rule out moving for some people. People are being threatened that their job is being relocated. I predict major confrontation in the State agencies, between the unions and the State, if the proposal is pushed any further. A massive re-think is necessary.

There is a plan in existence with regard to the spatial strategy which is designed around IT infrastructures, third level education and so on. That is also a plan for the development of the economy. The Minister's decentralisation plan bears no relation to that strategy on which we spent a fortune on fees for consultants' designs.

Mr. Hannon

Regarding Deputy Seán Ryan's question, this matter of a payment for people does not arise so far as my organisation is concerned. There is no payment to persuade the people concerned to move to the location identified for them. In response to Deputy Morgan, the only discussion we have ever had is about implementation. There was no reasoned discussion at all about the reasons for it in the first place.

In response to Deputy Twomey, my association has no attitude to decentralisation. We are not involved in it. The only aspect we are involved in is the relocation of the 200 Bus Éireann people to Mitchelstown in County Cork. If we had an attitude to decentralisation I am quite sure it would be positive.

Deputy Morgan

One of my questions was not answered and I understand why. I do not want it answered now, but perhaps later. It relates to the issue of numbers. We know that the document suggested moving 10,000 people but following contributions from the last speaker and many others we know that figure may not be accurate. Could we get a response?

Chairman

I do not understand the question.

Deputy Morgan

I am trying to find out the exact number of civil servants and agency workers who will be affected. The plan is for approximately 10,000 civil servants to be relocated, but that figure is very wide of the mark in terms of Bus Éireann alone. The figure in that area is understated, while in other Departments I have no doubt the figures are grossly overstated. We need to get a handle on actual figures. I do not believe the figure of 10,000 is accurate.

Chairman

The committee will return to that matter.

Deputy R. Bruton

I thank the unions for attending and for making such a worthwhile presentation from various perspectives. I am struck most by what Mr. Peter Nolan said, namely that the Government's choices on this issue are destroying prospects for many of the towns for which promises have been made. Mitchelstown is the most obvious example. It also struck me that none of the unions which made presentations had seen any business case made for the proposals presented. This raises the issue of what style of governance we have or should have. This is a plan produced under the cover of the budget. There was no strategic plan for it, no human resource plan, no business case assessment for it and no Government memorandum as far as we can see. There was no prior risk assessment even though every agency involved is, under accounting procedures, supposed to make a risk assessment to identify what could happen.

Contrary to what some Deputies suggested, this was not a solo run by the Minister for Finance. It was drawn up by a Cabinet sub-committee comprising the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister for Finance. This went to the very highest level of Government and yet has all these extraordinary flaws in the way it has been presented. There are serious questions to be asked about any system of governance which produces such radical change in the way we do our business without any of the scrutiny or prior preparation that a modern citizen democracy should expect. That is an issue which has emerged startlingly clear from the presentation. Even among those who are very supportive of the principle, there is a sense of bewilderment regarding its presentation this morning. I share that bewilderment. This is a very serious matter which will not be addressed by slowing the process down from three years to ten or 20 years. If we are getting things wrong, slowing down the procedure will probably make things worse in terms of creating decades of uncertainty and adjustment to something which is ultimately not in our interests.

The other conclusion seems to be that the notion of voluntarism is gone, once one rises above the levels of jobs which can be easily substituted. That is clear from the presentations. It is also clear that Dublin promotional opportunities will melt down as a result of this. We will move from a situation where there were about 21,000 public servants in Dublin to less than 13,000. Right through that transition, the promotional opportunities for those remaining 13,000 will shrink dramatically. There can be no dispute about that.

Half the interest in decentralisation is coming from applicants who are already decentralised outside Dublin. Decentralisation for the Department of Social and Family Affairs is probably the easiest, but even there, the ratio was three moves for every one job decentralised. We are putting the public service onto a massive merry-go-round over the next number of years.

While we know that 7.5% of Dublin-based people in the public service are willing to move within their Departments, we have also learnt from the presentations that the numbers moving to the post that they occupied, even in the public service, never mind the Stage agencies, is probably between 1% and 3%. Only a tiny number of people will continue to do the job they did. Some 97% or 98% of the posts will be occupied by different people, unless the plan changes dramatically. We know from the Revenue Commissioners' contribution that even when they took a six-year timeframe they only got to a figure of 10% of people actually moving with their jobs. One way or another we will see an extraordinary change of people doing the various jobs. All the knowledge and experience will be gone.

Mr. Berney may be the best person to say if all this represents human resource overload in the sense of a system being able to absorb that level of re-engineering, re-training and trying to find ways of trapping energy that is scattered. Is that simply overload, and what are we to do about it?

Many of the unions are clearly worried about the promotion issue. What promotional commitments has the Government already entered into? How does promotion work? We can consider the experience of the Revenue Commissioners, who were at the high end. Some 50% of their jobs were filled on promotion. At the lower end, in some other Departments, the figure was down to only about 20%. Out of 10,000 posts, one is talking of between 2,000 and 5,000 being filled on promotion. Under decentralisation, what effect does that scale of promotion have on existing promotional agreements?

Regarding new recruitment, figures indicate that between 10% and 35% of people are new recruits. That will mean 1,000 to 3,500 new recruits. Is the Government buying into that? Is there any sort of contingency plan to buy into new recruitment on that scale? The Minister for Finance has said that there must be a reduction of 5,000 posts rather than an increase. I am concerned with the practical side.

Section 7 of the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 states:

(1) An employee, if he is dismissed by his employer by reason of redundancy or is laid off or kept on short-time for the minimum period, shall, subject to this Act, be entitled to the payment of moneys which shall be known (and are in this Act referred to) as redundancy payment provided—

(a) he has been employed for the requisite period, and

(b) he was an employed contributor in employment which was insurable for all benefits under the Social Welfare Acts, 1952 to 1966, immediately before the date of the termination of his employment, or had ceased to be ordinarily employed in employment which was so insurable in the period of two years ending on that date.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), an employee who is dismissed shall be taken to be dismissed by reason of redundancy if the dismissal is attributable wholly or mainly to—

(a) the fact that his employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was employed by him, or has ceased or intends to cease, to carry on that business in the place where the employee was so employed

That seems an extraordinarily categorical definition of redundancy. What has the Government said to State agency workers regarding the alternative to the redundancy that is implied? Is there an offer of any sort on the table to people who want to exercise their voluntary rights under the scheme, which we are told is voluntary? It says in the Minister's statement that it will be implemented on a voluntary basis. What is the nature of the offer that has been made? Do we know anything of it, and how feasible will it be? What knock-on costs are there likely to be?

I was struck by the issue of consultation. The Minister for Finance's statement reads: "Any public service-wide issues will be addressed under the auspices of the Public Service Monitoring Group provided for in Sustaining Progress." I would read that as meaning that we are examining the big issues regarding whether one moves policy and strategy and specialist agencies. What level of discussion is going on in the public service monitoring group on such high-level issues? Perhaps Mr. Berney might be able to fill us in regarding to the extent to which one is able to create a forum for serious debate about such issues under the Sustaining Progress element. Those are the main issues that concern me.

What are the views of the unions? Yesterday we heard a presentation in which it was said that to move policy and strategy would be madness. To only move blocks of footloose administration to regions was easy but not a great bonus to successful regional policy. The ideal was to move planning and executive operations, but one needed to plan for the long term to build up the centres of excellence and the resources to create specialisms in the regions and make it work there. Is that a view that is broadly supported by the unions — that it is madness to move some of the core strategic policy-making? Should we move some of the footloose administration in the short term because it is easy? The real heavy lifting lies in making it feasible to move planning and executive functions — bounded operations — to drive regionalisation successfully. Is that a vision shared by congress and its constituent unions?

Deputy Nolan

I commend the union representatives who made their presentation today. I listened to the presentations yesterday and was far more struck by what said to us today. It is clear that the Government has set out its stall regarding decentralisation — or "relocation", as our friends called it yesterday. If there is a common thread coming through the submissions that we have had this morning, it is that, in principle, there seems to be broad agreement on decentralisation now being a fact and that it will happen. However, in most of the presentations there was a suggestion that the timescale will have to be extended. Politicians are now starting to accept that. Perhaps they were initially too ambitious in the timescale involved. Perhaps IMPACT might clarify the problems that seem to be affecting its members — and all others, I suppose. The term "public service wasteland" was used to describe what Dublin may become from an employment point of view after decentralisation.

Promotion prospects seem to be a concern for everyone involved. If negotiations were to take place, that issue might be resolved. The Government's proposal spoke of 10,200 public servants being transferred from Dublin to rural settings. What is the witnesses' estimate for those relocated to rural settings if that aspect of job promotion were resolved in Dublin? I commend SIPTU for distinguishing between itself and the other unions regarding how its members will be affected. Does it see the problems that it has identified being resolved, or is it simply the case that, because of the uniqueness of its members and their contract with agencies, it may be well-nigh impossible for many of them to transfer? That area of the proposal may not be feasible.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

I thank the unions for giving their view and outlining their position. I come from a rural constituency, and there are great expectations in that constituency and the county of Cork regarding the transfers to take place, the developments and the decentralisation. I see it as decentralisation rather than anything else. I have been somewhat disturbed by one or two things that I have heard. I missed the contribution from Mr. Hannon of the TSSA. I listened attentively to Ms Patricia King of SIPTU about Fáilte Éireann going to Mallow. A substantial number of jobs are going to that town, which is a hub in the spatial strategy programme. As well as that, it is a very well-serviced town in rail heads. It probably has one of the best rail services in the country. It is very close to Cork city and has a very good road infrastructure. I suppose that it is the gateway to the west of Cork. It is a very attractive place.

On the Mitchelstown situation, there are many words that I could use to describe my shock at what has been said. It is a very attractive town. It is on the main Cork-Dublin route. Many years ago, a train used to travel from Cork on the eastern side of the town, so it has a history. It is a very attractive place. I am aware that there may be a need for housing. I do not understand where the problem has arisen that only a single person should apply. There will be grave disappointment at what has been outlined here. That is the local side of it.

Many people are working in the Civil Service and public service. I have requests from people working in local authorities and health boards to transfer to different agencies. While civil and public servants are all in the one category, we have people in local authorities wishing to work in Fáilte Ireland, for example, or the Land Registry in Waterford. Is there any mechanism in place for flexibility in that area so that those people can transfer? The status of the job may be very different, but the grades are the same. Mr. Geraghty was very attracted and said that 1,000 of his members would transfer. That was a very positive statement coming from him. That is a tenth of the total number of people being earmarked for transfer by the Government.

The other issue raised was why there would not be career opportunities for people. There will have to be promotions in jobs. There will be wastage, and things will happen. I cannot understand why there should not be promotions and career opportunities for those who will transfer and for those left in Dublin. That is a negative approach, in my view. On our side of the table, the response, on balance, is positive. Following what Deputy Nolan said I do not have much more to add. I would stress, however, that decentralisation has worked well to date. We have the CSO in Mahon, in Cork. At the time that was mooted there was much opposition. Many people said it would not work. It has worked very well. A substantial number of civil servants are working there. There is flexibility, with different transfers. The Land Registry, of which I have experience, is working very well in Waterford. I remember the Land Registry in Dublin. Members of the Oireachtas have to communicate regularly with the Land Registry on behalf of constituents to get things done, with reference to maps, folio numbers etc. That is working well, too.

If we are to change the status of the country we will have to shift from Dublin. I understand someone made a statement recently to the effect that in 20 years from now there will be 4.7 million people living in the southern part of the country. We will be close to the figures for the Famine of the 1840s, when the other parts of the island are taken into account. More than two thirds of that population will be living along the eastern seaboard area from Dundalk to Wexford. We cannot allow that to happen. Now is the time to put measures in place, to do something about rural Ireland and to keep the people away from Dublin.

If we look at industrial development, all of the trade union delegates have an interest in this, especially SIPTU. Most industry coming to this country is being located in the larger growth centres, mainly Dublin. We are all being forgotten. I take the town of Youghal as an example which is to get two decentralised offices. As far as I know there is currently no industry in Youghal. All the people are travelling to work in places such as Dungarvan, Waterford, Cork city and perhaps, Carrigtwohill, which is close to Cork. It is a great boost for Youghal and it is important that decentralised offices and staff are to be located there. I heard the Tánaiste speaking this morning on "Morning Ireland" on the problems of Donegal. She referred to an IDA team working in America as regards this. However, it is hard to industrialise the country. The trade unions have an input into this. There is a failure within the system, among Government agencies and the unions, to get industry to locate in the rural parts of the country. I do not know what is the problem, given our regional airports. Some of the delegates are coming across as being negative on this issue.

Senator O’Toole

Rubbish.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

Rubbish is right. I have to look at it from a more positive perspective. It is a very attractive programme. It is imaginative and has many other positive elements. Governments are not always imaginative, but it was a fair boost to the country when this announcement was made in the budget. A budget decision always stands and this is Government policy.

Senator O’Toole

The Deputy is correct in saying it was a fair boost to the country, so artificially was it delivered. I would like to congratulate witnesses on the presentations they made this morning, which effectively were a highly articulate and comprehensive tour of the whole issue. Most importantly, in reference to Deputy Ned O'Keeffe's last comment, the presentations were so positive. They did not feed into an urban-rural break-up or present as an anti-decentralisation platform. Two key messages to come from today's meeting are that there is no opposition to decentralisation and neither has an anti-rural view been expressed.

However, it is clear that what is about to be created is a total human resources mess, which has to be intractable. While we heard the good news that is being reflected so thoughtfully and positively by Deputy Ned O'Keeffe, the policy document from the Government on decentralisation is more like a holiday brochure for Discover Ireland than a White Paper on strategic management or service delivery. That is the reality.

It also clarifies why we had difficulty here a couple of months ago when Deputy Ned O'Keeffe led the charge to stop a discussion on it. It would have taken a better trick than the miracle of loaves and fishes to work out how 200 jobs would be fed to Mitchelstown when only 80 were available for redistribution. I can understand the embarrassment he felt at the time in trying to defend the Government on that issue. Unfortunately, at some stage we have to deal with it. Unless we build a metro in Mitchelstown we will not get 200 jobs there.

Importantly, what we heard this morning was a clear articulation of the cynicism on this issue among the public. The unions addressed this in a clear and positive way. They have raised issues for us. Rather than ask specific questions back at the unions at this stage, it is more important for us, as Deputy Richard Bruton indicated, to look at the questions that have been raised for this committee and to put them to the Government.

There is also the issue which Deputy Morgan raised, about which I am clear. I want to ask, taking that particular example, where were the 200 jobs in Bus Éireann? How could someone say 200 jobs could be moved from Bus Éireann if there are only 80 there at the moment, unless we relocate the Dingle bus driver to Mitchelstown or something? The reality is that it cannot be done, but who came up with the idea? We need to look forward and to put the questions. We need to hear about the costs. The cost given to us by IMPACT was simplified, as was made clear. It was simply a case of multiplying the number of jobs by the cost. However, much more is involved such as the ancillary cost of keeping staff etc., which also needs to be looked at.

A crucial matter was raised by Deputy Richard Bruton as regards the public service monitoring group. What will it be doing on this issue? Deputy Bruton and myself had some slight differences over the last round of payments for the public service and benchmarking. At that stage I sang the praises of the different structures that were put in place to monitor them. However, this is a situation where those structures can now be brought into play to do what is required. We can get information for this committee, accordingly. We are going to be coming back after a series of discussions and people will be advancing, correctly, their own viewpoints. At the end of that process I would like to get a positive response from the Chairman when I propose we set up an independent consultancy for this committee to analyse, assess, evaluate and make recommendations on the various issues raised with us this morning, such as costs, feasibility, policy development, legal fall-out, business plans, efficiency and numbers.

I would like to see neutral information put in front of the committee. Let us put to the test the issues raised by the trade union speakers and the arguments that have been put forward to us by the Government. It seems to me this is another example of a good idea such as e-voting being messed up in its implementation. What we can take from today's meeting is that the groups which were expected to be totally antagonistic to the whole process of decentralisation have one after another been supportive of the principle and have simply pleaded that it be implemented and put in place in a proper fashion. That has come from speaker after speaker and it is confirmed in my notes from every speaker. We are all agreed on an end objective therefore, why can we not deliver on it? We cannot deliver because an element of arrogance and "second termism" is coming to bear on this and making it impossible.

I know that in the week before a Cabinet reshuffle Deputy Ned O'Keeffe might do a Peter Mandelson and return for a third time. He may have to say positive things on behalf of the Government. I do not know. The committee would need to look down the line at the questions that are coming up. I want to get an answer to the question on the public service monitoring group. It has been raised by a number of people here. Let us put it to the test. I would also like to hear the views of the union representatives on the idea of this committee seeking the establishment of an independent consultancy to examine and evaluate the areas I mentioned earlier. That is the way the decentralisation question may ultimately be dealt with, by presenting the Government with independent findings. It means that we can assure the Government that we have investigated the issue with an open mind and with nobody opposed to the concept.

Chairman

We indicated at the commencement of yesterday's meeting that at the conclusions of the meetings in September, having had Mr. Phil Flynn, the relevant Minister, representatives of the State agencies and the Central Applications Facility come before the committee, that we would prepare an all-party report on decentralisation. It may involve employing a consultant, and that will be decided at a meeting in September.

I ask the delegates to be brief when replying to members. I call the delegate from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr. Berney.

Mr. Berney

I will respond very briefly to some of the issues raised by Deputy Richard Bruton. It would not be possible to do justice in the short time available to the range of human resource implications, but I will point to two or three of them. In the first instance, the proposal to decentralise is on a voluntary basis. My colleagues will have heard me repeat this point half a dozen times, but it is important. Should the staff with specialist skills in making maps in the Ordnance Survey Ireland office in the Phoenix Park choose to remain in Dublin when the organisation transfers down the country, people with specialist skills must be found to make maps while the existing staff remain in Dublin. That simple example illustrates the point — a doubling of the number of staff — because I understand there is no proposal to make civil or public servants compulsorily redundant.

Ms Patricia King has raised the legal issues at meetings. A significant number of civil servants will choose to remain in Dublin but their jobs will be transferred elsewhere. Unless the Government decides to create a range of new public service institutions, they will have nothing to do. Any process by which this committee may bring clarity to this conundrum will be welcome. I understand there has been no discussion on the modernisation of the public services as referred to in Sustaining Progress.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and its affiliated unions are not opposed in any shape or form to the principle of decentralisation. Significant difficulties arise with decentralisation that have been ably articulated by my colleagues and I do not propose to rehearse them. We welcome this opportunity to make an input, which we hope will bear fruit, and the fact that we will get answers to the questions that have been posed in the past four or five months.

Chairman

I now call on Ms King from SIPTU.

Ms King

In response to Deputy Bruton, who raised a question on the redundancy legislation, there have been four meetings with the Department of Finance in which SIPTU has been involved. In my opinion, the Department of Finance only took cognisance at the last meeting of the issue raised by us on the status of employees where the employment has been relocated. In its response, the Department of Finance understood there was a legal difficulty but felt that SIPTU was wrong not to be involved in the Central Applications Facility. The Department made no reference whatsoever to redundancy payments and the issue has not been dealt with. I believe the Department knows there is a legal difficulty but its officers were not prepared to discuss it with us or go into any detail on it.

In response to Deputy Nolan, I believe it is correct to say that we have got our thinking to the stage where my colleague in Amicus would say it is virtually impossible to deal with the decentralisation of State agencies, given all the issues we have raised, and deal with it under the same heading as the decentralisation proposition for the Civil Service. That is my view. I agree with Deputy Ned O'Keeffe's comments that Mallow is probably a very attractive place, but with respect, I do not think it is so attractive that people should line up to be sacked to go there.

Chairman

I call Mr. O Riordain.

Mr. O Riordain

I will deal with the issues in the sequence in which they were raised. On the question of human resource overload, our members in the Civil Service, would be pre-eminently involved in managing the transfers. The facts speak for themselves. Only 7.5% of people across 42 organisations in Dublin wish to transfer. Clearly, the prospect of replacing 92.5% of staff over a three year period is an impossibility without doing serious and lasting damage to the public service. Equally, we have no doubt that the position of our members employed in State agencies will not change substantially by September. Ms King referred to one such practical example, FÁS, which is essentially decentralised and the people who work in Baggot Street want to work there because if they had wished to work down the country, they could have done so. That is the practical reality of the world we live in. If the jobs of 10,000 people are to be decentralised but only 3,000 staff from Dublin wish to move down the country, one must find 7,000 staff. Mr. Gerraghty raised the issue of promotion and incentives. I believe that removal expenses and so on should be paid but many people are exercising a lifestyle choice and I do not believe and never have believed that incentives will change the fundamental issues.

On the issue of the discussion processes, which resonates with one of the questions raised by Senator Joe O'Toole, the reality is that the unions were faced with a decision and were told that the Government had decided to relocate 10,300 public servants to 53 locations in 25 counties and that it would talk to the unions about the implementation of the decision. We tried to raise with the Government whether this made sense, but nobody wanted to listen to that. Let members look at the issues we raised, and this links in with the point made by Senator O'Toole on the need for an independent investigation, quite separate from trade unions, to try to determine objectively the facts of the matter. If we have that, then we can see where the public interest lies. There is an issue in transferring central policy making functions in eight or nine Departments around Ireland. That is a real issue and has been articulated by others. I have no doubt that if we were offering advice to the emerging states in the EU we would not tell them to put policy makers at different ends of the country, because they are looking for a coherent, comprehensive government policy that enables them to respond nationally and internationally. I should be able to say this as a trade union representative, without being attacked or being accused of being disloyal to government decisions. This fundamentally affects the public interest.

Our job is to raise issues that our members are bringing to us. My people asked questions on whether it made sense to transfer policy functions and agencies in the manner proposed. These are reasonable questions. We are not against decentralisation. I moved to Fethard-on-Sea on a voluntary basis, but my colleagues in the unions will not come with me. We have no objection to decentralisation and I would love to see it work. There are areas where it has worked. The crucial difference was that previously it was done for primary executive agencies rather than primary policy making agencies, and it was done in a reasonable timescale. There was no effort made to push 70 organisations around the country together over a three year period. It is impossible to do that without creating an overload.

There are also cost issues. In our document we set out what those were. Yet it would be beneficial to have an independent assessment on this. We support decentralisation and we have worked with it on every occasion. There are aspects of this where it makes sense to look at it again.

Mr. Nolan

Deputy Richard Bruton spoke about the point I made on destroying choices. I am glad that he picked up on that because if we have the opportunity for reasonable dialogue, then something can be salvaged from this programme. Deputy Ned O'Keeffe mentioned negativity. If that is coming from me, I would like to stem that. I said that some of this is viable and some is not viable. If we have the space to engage and not be told that we must implement, then there is the possibility of salvaging the worthwhile elements of this programme.

Deputy Bruton also spoke about the business case. What is there to fear from subjecting these proposals to a business case? Many members also asked questions on the figures. There is confusion and a sense that is inevitable that those who want it will do it. One third of the Civil Service has applied for 6,000 jobs, but they are not the people in the jobs that are being transferred. I plead with this committee, if it has influence, to ensure that when the next round of the CAF is published, it will break down the figures of the grades that are required in each town with the figures of the grades that are required to go to each town. That will be the key turning point. In Navan, 80 people are required to be probation officers, 99 have applied yet not one is a probation officer. I found out yesterday that five of them are driver testers who want to be probation officers, but they do not have the qualifications. That is all buried in the aggregate figures that are out there. We need to disaggregate the figures when the time comes.

Deputy Nolan spoke about the public service wasteland that might be in Dublin. There is a great fear that the jobs of the 1,000 IMPACT members in the Civil Service will not be viable. They wonder what will happen to them. They are not transferable and therefore they feel they have no career prospects if this goes ahead. They feel that they might be a cost to the State as they will not move somewhere unless it is acceptable to them. Deputy Ned O'Keeffe pointed out two agencies that rely heavily on professionals who have transferred, namely the CSO and the Land Registry. The key to the success of both of them was that they retained substantial numbers of staff in Dublin. That is something with which we are willing to engage if we are given the space for dialogue.

It has been a central plank of our union's policy that there would be independent analysis of all cases. I would advocate the UK models. The case for moving and the case for staying should be subjected to that analysis.

Mr. Tierney

I would like to provide an example of what happens when decentralisation is railroaded. About three years ago, the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. O'Donoghue, decided to relocate the head office of the legal aid board to his home town in Kerry. As we speak, over 80% of the staff are in the Dublin office, with a handful in the Kerry office. There was no dialogue and we have ended up with the worst possible scenario. That is what has to be avoided.

Mr. Geraghty

I want to respond to the comment made by Deputy Ned O'Keeffe, that we were being negative. There was no intention on my part and I do not believe there was any intention on the part of my colleagues to be negative on this issue. I have been struck by the way in which the language in the public debate on this issue has developed. There is almost a standard piety that when one is about to say something mildly critical of decentralisation, one is expected to preface one's remarks by saying one is in favour of decentralisation. I will spare the committee the meaningless formula. Our position is clear. We have no problem with decentralising those members of our union who are interested in moving. Where we run into problems is if there is any suggestion of coercing people. We have people who are interested in moving and we are positive about that. We are about the process of engagement as well. We are prepared to engage and work out any industrial relations issues.

Deputy Bruton asked about the implications for the promotion arrangements as they apply to our members affected by this proposal. The truthful answer is that we do not know. We have had suggestions from the Department of Finance that all promotions would be made conditional on people being willing to relocate. There are no circumstances under which we will agree to that. One of the absolute conditions for our continued engagement in this process is that there are proper and decent career opportunities available for our members who remain in Dublin. We have members in State agencies and some of the issues that have been articulated by Patricia King and John Tierney are equally applicable to ourselves. There is another aspect to a similar problem as we have a considerable number of people who are IT specialists. It would have been totally unmanageable to have done anything else and it may yet be unmanageable. We will engage with the Department of Finance as the representative of the employer to see whether those issues can be dealt with. It is probably more manageable because the posts are to be located near Dublin. This reflects the fact that if one looks behind the figures people are opting to change their commuting patters rather than to relocate their homes. That is not a bad thing given the traffic difficulties in our major urban centres. It is clear from the figures that the interest is coming from those who are seeking to move within easy commuting distance of their existing location.

Mr. Hannon

I do not have any great grá for consultants but Senator O'Toole's suggestion is a good one. I hope the consultants can get more information out of the Departments of Transport and Finance than I could get. While they are at it I would like them to find out how they can get 200 out of 80?

I should say to Deputy Ned O'Keeffe I do not have any rural bias. Despite my accent I lived in and attended secondary school in Cork. I am quite certain Mitchelstown is a nice location but it is not Deputy O'Keeffe's fault or Mitchelstown's fault that it has nothing going for it in terms of it being a headquarters for a national bus company. That is the point we are making. That situation should be properly evaluated. There are other locations that would be good candidates. For example, Athlone town is the major crossing point for the intercity services. There are many other places that could and should be evaluated and the right decision should be made.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

Would Mr. Hannon recommend to an agency to swap with Mitchelstown given that he is looking at Athlone? Perhaps an agency in Athlone would relocate to Mitchelstown?

Mr. Coffey

My union has no objection in principle to wealth being distributed around the country to various areas. I remind Deputy O'Keeffe that this has happened in the CSO. It was not entirely to my liking because some of the jobs were privatised. The reason it worked is that some of the jobs were left in Dublin. Decentralisation has worked in that way. Deputy Nolan said our major concerns would be time and that there was consensus here. I do not think he was listening to me. My problem concerns volume and the whole of a Department moving at one time. I respect time as well. My other priority is that out of the 1,300 civil servants I represent, 40 have made application to move. There are 200 jobs outside Dublin. We have not yet got the breakdown on where they are. Obviously we would welcome 200 people being employed outside Dublin. My immediate priority concerns those in Dublin and what will happen to them.

To reply to Senator O'Toole, I would have no opposition to being analysed at any time. I do not mean that literally, but we would welcome——

Senator O’Toole

We have done that before.

Mr. Coffey

An independent committee would be helpful and it might clarify a number of issues that are vague at present.

Mr. Ó Riordáin

I wish to be associated with what Mr. Geraghty has said, that it is a common cause. In regard to the reference to public service waste out of Dublin, none of us can live with a situation where, because of the transfer of jobs out of Dublin, promotion stops. Already the Department of Finance is in breach of arrangements with us. The concept that if one is to get to the top of the Civil Service, the determining factor in the future would be that one would have to go to one location, does not make sense.

Chairman

I am bringing the meeting to a conclusion. On behalf of the committee I thank all those who contributed.

Deputy Twomey

Will it be possible for members of the committee to have the typed script of the meetings of the past two days during August?

Chairman

It will be on the Oireachtas website within a week or so.

Deputy Morgan

Can we have clarification on what information Mr. Flynn may bring back in his report? I am concerned about duplication. I am not aware——

Chairman

We have not seen it.

Deputy Morgan

Apart from the headline information will it deal with some of the issues we have raised here?

Chairman

I would hope so. If it does not it will be seriously flawed.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

When is it proposed-——

Chairman

September. I am coming to that.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

The Flynn——

Chairman

The committee intends to resume discussions in September. On behalf of the joint committee I thank all those present today. It has been helpful to us and I hope it has been helpful to the delegations. The only issue I wish to decide on is the date for the next meeting. We may not be able to finalise it but I would like to set a provisional date for mid-September.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

What about the first week of September?

Chairman

During the first week in September our party will be away for a few days attending a "think-in" meeting. Members will not be here. We are going a little further than Mitchelstown, to Inchydoney.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

On the Wednesday and Thursday?

Chairman

That may be too tight. Members will only be coming back from Cork.

Deputy Twomey

Are some of the Ministers coming back?

Chairman

I suggest Wednesday, 15 September. The committee will visit the US the following weekend. In regard to the agenda, apart from the routine items, we can either resume our discussion on decentralisation with some of the groups mentioned, the central applications facility and Mr. Phil Flynn — I do not know who the Minister will be if there is one at that time — or, alternatively, we could invite AIB to come before the committee on that date.

Deputy N. O’Keeffe

Could we get AIB out of the way?

Chairman

Perhaps if AIB is——

Senator O’Toole

If we must decide today, it should be AIB rather than have something changed.

Chairman

AIB has said it is happy to come in. We will try to set aside 15 September for AIB. If that date does not suit we will see whether we can schedule the decentralisation discussion.

The joint committee adjourned at 1.40 p.m. sine die.