Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 July 2004
200 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the major factors which led to the particular decentralised location chosen, and the criteria used for selection in respect of each decentralisation move in his Department outlined in the budget 2004 statement. [21060/04]
View answerI refer the Deputy to the December 2003 Budget Statement of my colleague, the Minister for Finance, on the Governments decentralisation programme. The Budget Statement set out the wide range of factors taken into account and balanced against each other in making the overall selection of locations. These factors included: the need to achieve a fit with the national spatial strategy, in terms of the gateways, hubs and their respective catchments; the location of existing decentralised offices; the desirability of clustering a Department's decentralised units within a region; the importance of respecting the scale and character of locations in terms of their capacity to absorb the number of new jobs involved and, the existence of good transport links, by road, rail and-or air, and the general infrastructural capacity in the areas selected.
The subsequent decision to relocate the seafood and coastal zone divisions of the Department to Clonakilty was based on capitalising on the synergies of co-locating with an Bord Iascaigh Mhara to enhance overall service to the seafood and aquaculture sectors from a coastal location. The ensuing decision on relocation of the marine safety directorate followed analysis by the Department of a number of east coast locations. As a result of this analysis, Drogheda was recommended as the most suitable HQ location from which the directorate could deliver its broad range of services.
