As announced by my colleague the former Minister for Finance on 3 December 2003, the Irish Prison Service headquarters will be decentralised to Longford. It is anticipated that up to 178 jobs currently assigned to various Dublin locations, including 130 staff of the Prison Service employed at its current Clondalkin headquarters, together with other elements of prison management including the buildings services, purchasing services and a number of contract IT support staff will decentralise. The legal formalities relating to the acquisition from Longford County Council of the site selected for the new headquarters building are nearing completion.
Based on the decentralisation central applications facility, CAF, data of 7 September 2004 some 37 employees of the Prison Service together with 108 other civil servants and five public servants have nominated Longford as their first preference for relocation. As the Deputy is aware, the CAF continues to be open for the receipt of applications until such time as the decentralisation programme has been implemented in full.