I propose to take Questions Nos. 224, 227 and 228 together.
The Central Applications Facility (CAF), which was launched in May 2004, remains open and continues to receive applications. Up to September 2008, over thirteen thousand civil and public servants have applied on the CAF to relocate under the Programme. Over 7,000 of these — or 53% — were Dublin based applicants. A total of 868 people have withdrawn their application since CAF was launched. Because of the nature of the programme and the timescales involved, individual circumstances are open to change and application status may change as a result.
Across the public service, recruitment and promotion practices generally are being managed in a way which facilitates the achievement of the Decentralisation Programme in an efficient manner. In that context agreement has been reached with the Civil Service unions representing general service staff that an assignment will not be made to a decentralising post until alternative arrangements have been identified for an existing post holder who does not wish to decentralise with it. The primary mechanism for placing Civil Servants who are in posts which are due to decentralise but wish to remain in Dublin is by way of bilateral transfer. As staff who have applied to decentralise continue to be transferred into decentralising organisations, the posts they vacate become available to those wishing to remain in Dublin.
Further arrangements have been initiated for general service grades. The objective of these Dublin Arrangements is to provide to the Public Appointments Service details of staff who wish to remain in Dublin at each grade level so that a proportion of vacancies arising in Dublin based posts may be filled by those staff. The arrangements seek to balance the need to facilitate the effective achievement of the decentralisation programme with the business needs of departments and the aspirations of staff to be placed in appropriate posts in Dublin. To achieve this, they allow for prioritisation at certain times of staff in organisations who have an immediate need to be placed in Dublin posts due to the timing of the relocation of their current department or office. It is intended that the arrangements will continue over the full transition phase of the Programme and my department is monitoring them in co-operation with Departments and the relevant unions to ensure that they are operating efficiently.
The Government decided on 8 July last that no further expenditure on the acquisition of accommodation for decentralisation should be sanctioned pending detailed consideration by the Government of two reports: one from the Decentralisation Implementation Group on the feasibility of phased moves by the State Agencies; and one from the Implementation Group of Secretaries General on the governmental and cross-Departmental issues arising from the need to provide facilities for Ministers, Ministers of State and officials while in Dublin on business. I expect that these reports will be presented to the Government for consideration over the coming weeks.