Decentralisation Programme Expenditure

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Questions (489)

Kevin Humphreys

Question:

489. Deputy Kevin Humphreys asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will outline what offices relevant to his Department are located or have been decentralised outside of Dublin; if he will provide the total number of staff in his Department and the number of staff based outside County Dublin as of 2013; the annual cost incurred in 2012 and 2013, respectively, for decentralised staff travelling to meetings in Dublin; the number of times staff travelled to individual meetings in Dublin in each of those years; the costs those staff will be reimbursed; if his Department has procedures or mechanisms in place such as video conferencing to reduce the cost of travelling for each unit based outside Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53987/13]

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Written answers

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine

The table sets out the main offices (of which 4 were decentralised) and the 16 regional offices which are relevant to my Department and are located or have been decentralised outside of Dublin:

Regional Offices	Other HQ
Cavan	Backweston
Castlebar	Cavan (decentralised)
Clonakilty	Clonakilty (decentralised)
Cork	Portlaoise (decentralised)
Drumshanbo	Wexford (decentralised)
Enniscorthy
Galway
Limerick
Naas
Navan
Raphoe
Roscommon
Tipperary
Tullamore
Tralee
Waterford

My Department also has 5 Regional Veterinary Laboratories and two Dairy Science Laboratories located outside of Dublin/Backweston and staff are also headquartered in various food business operations throughout the country.

There are currently 3,345 (3180.46 FTE) staff employed in my Department with 2,800 (2,674.56 FTE) based outside County Dublin.

The following are details of expenses paid to staff for travelling to meetings in Dublin provided on the basis of the destination stated on the relevant expenses claims for the years 2012 and 2013 to-date:

Year

Total Cost

€

No. of Claimants

Average No. of trips per Claimant

2012

126,220

217

2013

124,796

200

My Department makes extensive use of Video Conferencing (VC) technologies to facilitate meetings between staff that are based in geographically diverse locations. Outside of the Department’s Headquarters (Agriculture House, Dublin 2) there are a total 34 units in the following locations:

Department Office	No. Units
Portlaoise (6 offices- Decentralised Office)	10
Backweston Campus	8
Clonakilty (Decentralised Office)	4
Wexford (Decentralised Office)	2
Cavan (Decentralised Office)	2
Regional Veterinary Laboratories (Sligo, Kilkenny, Cork, Athlone, Limerick)	5
Castlebar Office	1
Cork Office	1
Waterford Office	1

In addition, my Department use approximately 20 desktop web cameras which interface with the Department’s VC system into a number of offices.