My Department is required to relocate 250 posts to Carlow under the Government's Decentralisation Programme. This number accounts for less than a quarter of the total sanctioned posts in the Department.
The Secretary General and Assistant Secretaries in my Department will be located in Dublin.
The post of Director of the National Employment Rights Authority, which is at Assistant Secretary level, is based in Carlow. There are also three Principal Officer level posts based in Carlow, with another to be decentralised in the future.
The post of Controller of Patents, which is at Principal Officer level, is based in Kilkenny. The Patents Office decentralised to Kilkenny in 1998.