My Department is decentralising to two locations. The Irish language division and the placenames branch are scheduled to relocate to our existing decentralised offices in Na Forbacha, County Galway, while the remainder of the Department will relocate to Knock Airport, County Mayo.
A wide range of factors were taken into account and balanced against each other in the selection of the locations for decentralisation. In the case of Knock Airport, these factors included: the existence of good transport links by road, rail and air and the general infrastructural capacity in the area selected; the accessibility of much of rural Ireland from this location; the fact that Knock Airport is in a CLÁR area. In the case of na Forbacha the main factor was the fact that my Department already has functions relating to the Irish language, islands and Gaeltacht located there.