Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 18 Feb 1993

Vol. 135 No. 2

Adjournment Matters. - Government Office Accommodation.

Mr. Enright

I wish the Minister well in his new position and hope he has a fruitful time in office.

The Government decided to lease a building at Mespil Road, Dublin, at a cost to the taxpayer of approximately £0.25 million. This former FÁS building will be used by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform and the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. The Government has decided to lease approximately 25,000 square feet for an eight year period at a rent of approximately £11 per square foot when there is more than sufficient office accommodation already available to Ministers and civil servants. The partners in Government, Fianna Fáil and Labour, are calling on people to tighten their belts. It is extravagant to spend in excess of £0.25 million on new office accommodation when people are unable to obtain admission to hospital for essential operations and many families are living in substandard accommodation.

Across the road from this House, at 25-29 Upper Merrion Street, former Government offices are in terrible condition with water seeping through the roofs and saturating the walls. I am not certain at this stage who owns these houses and I would like the Minister to outline what is the present position of those and who owns them. I understand that Marsh Properties has been in possession of these properties for approximately one year. Have they paid rent? Has the business been closed? What is the position? What was the cost? The public are entitled to know the position.

In the last 12 to 18 months, over 2,700 civil servants have been transferred from Dublin in the Government programme of decentralisation and have been relocated in various centres around the country. Space must be available with all those civil servants leaving their existing accommodation in Dublin. At present there are existing ministerial and Government offices at Adelaide Road, Dublin, Lower Grand Canal Street and at Government Buildings. I question the necessity for the additional Government office accommodation; to me this appears to be empire building.

I am in favour of both Ministers and civil servants having good office accommodation and proper conditions in which to undertake their very responsible duties and functions. From my inquiries the following is the position. There is sufficient office accommodation available and there are approximately 45,000 square feet of office accommodation available in Baggot Street owned by FÁS. This is excellent accommodation. The price asked for the accommodation in Baggot Street is £8 per square foot, and is probably available at £7 per square foot, which is £4 less than the cost of the other accommodation.

If the Government is serious about savings in public finance it should re-examine this situation. The Government are bringing forward a budget next Wednesday. We are daily being told that there are going to be tax increases and we are promised a tough budget. In this instance the Government should lead by example. Is it essential to lease more Government offices? Is it essential to spend this further £0.25 million? Minister's advisers at present are costing approximately £2 million per year. Somebody has to foot the bill. I ask the Government to reconsider this spending which I consider to be extravagant at this time given the present economic circumstances.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Mr. Aylward)

I apologise for the Minister with direct responsibility for this area. Unfortunately he could not be here this evening. I thank Senator Enright for raising this matter.

I am pleased to get this opportunity to place on the record of the House the fact that the Commissioners of Public Works have had a planned disposal programme in place since 1986 and that any surplus space arising from decentralisation and other Government programmes, such as recruitment embargoes, the early retirement scheme, etc., has either been disposed of — 78,000 square feet, approximately — or reallocated to cater for new or expanded Government services, for instance, Environment Information Service, National Archive, Probation and Welfare Service, or to relieve overcrowding. Some examples of major disposals are Teach Earlsfort, the Merrion Street houses, the former Davitt House at Mespil Road and Pearse House. As a result of this disposal programme, the commissioners are now net disposers of space. Any new lettings taken by them are invariably for specialist services, such as employment exchanges, which clearly could not be met from the existing portfolio.

In 1992 the commissioners acquired some 68,000 sq. ft. of new accommodation at a rental cost, in a full year, of some £480,000. Only 9,000 sq. ft. of this accommodation was in Dublin which included a driving test centre at Orwell Road, Rathgar, and warehousing at North Wall, with the balance being in areas outside Dublin. The bulk of the space acquired outside Dublin was to provide for the Revenue Commissioners new countywide vehicle registration tax operation.

In addition to the above, arrangements are in train for the acquisition of approximately 26,500 sq. ft. of accommodation, from within the existing holdings of the public sector to meet requirements arising from the reorganisation of the Departments of State and in particular the needs of the new Departments of Arts, Culture, Gaeltacht and Equality and Law Reform. In the interests of efficiency and economy, it will be necessary, in so far as is practicable, to house, under one roof, the various components of the new Departments.

On the general topic of decentralisation, I would like to say that the Government is very pleased with the progress which has been made to date. Phase One of the programme was completed in 1989 and saw the move of a total of 750 public servants to Cavan, Galway, Sligo and Ballina. Phase Two is almost complete with offices at Killarney, Letterkenny, Athlone, Ennis and Nenagh accommodating a total of 800 staff. The remaining centre, Limerick, which will accommodate 550 people is expected to be completed early this year and occupied, on a phased basis, by staff of the Collector General and Revenue.

Phase Three of the programme was announced in June 1991. It involves moving sizeable sections of ten Government Departments to the following eight locations, which the Senator will be aware includes two centres near his home base: these include Longford, Tullamore, Portlaoise, Dundalk, Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny and Cork. The total staff numbers to be moved will be in the region of 1,500. The buildings in Longford and Cork are well under way and the first stage of the Kilkenny building has been completed. In a further extension of the decentralisation programme the Government announced in November 1992 that the General Register Office of the Department of Health would be transferred to Roscommon town.

It is policy, where appropriate, to provide accommodation for locally based staff, of all Departments, in the decentralisation buildings. Generally speaking, the provincial Civil Service accommodation, outside of the main population centres, is scattered over several buildings, usually rented, often on short leases, and in many instances provides accommodation that is not wholly satisfactory. With the advent of more stringent building and fire regulations, new accommodation would in any event, have to be provided in the near future. The decentralisation programme is, therefore, providing an ideal opportunity of solving local accommodation problems.

The programme is being carried out at a cost which, by any reckoning, is favourable to the State.

The Seanad adjourned at 5.50 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 25 February 1993.