Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 July 2004
289 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform 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. [21064/04]
View answerA wide range of factors was taken into account in deciding the particular locations for decentralising Departments and agencies, including: the need to achieve accordance with the national spatial strategy, in terms of the gateways, hubs and their respective catchment areas; 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; the existence of good transport links by road, rail and-or air and the general infrastructural capacity in the areas selected.
