The Minister for Foreign Affairs has become embroiled in a bitter row with key development aid experts following his warning that they would be replaced if they did not agree to transfer to Limerick under the Government's decentralisation plan.
Last night, the aid specialists' union, Impact, wrote to the Taoiseach demanding an explanation of Dermot Ahern's conduct and warning that the Minister's intervention threatened to damage the Government's promises that decentralisation would be voluntary.
The expert staff, who were hired from 2002 onwards, are employed on fixed-term contracts to supply economic, technical and project analysis advice. Others provide health, education and rural development expertise to the Development Co-Operation Ireland unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
So far, just 13 of DCI's staff based in the organisation's headquarters have agreed to transfer to Limerick when the unit is due to move early next year, but it is understood that all but one of the specialist staff are refusing to move.
Speaking on RTÉ's Five Seven Live radio programme on Wednesday, the Minister said specialists should not believe that they could not be replaced, or that they were indispensable.
In a letter to The Irish Times, some of the specialist staff said that the Government had guaranteed that staff would not be forced to leave Dublin if they did not wish to do so, but the Minister now seemed to be changing the rules.
"The Minister's remarks are not only insulting but, in our view, they also undermine the current human resource strategy of the department, which recognises the importance of specialist input in the programme . . . In spite of the Government's assurances that decentralisation is voluntary, specialist staff now understand that, for them, this is not now the case.
"Despite repeated requests from Impact for information on what alternatives are available for DCI specialist staff who do not wish to decentralise, no such information has been provided. In this situation, the Minister's statement implies that, for us, decentralisation is compulsory," stated the letter, which was signed by DCI's Impact committee representatives (Kevin Carroll, Fionnuala Gilsenan, Fintan Farrelly, Fiona English, Kevin Colgan and Earnán Ó Cléirigh).
On Wednesday, 35 non-governmental aid agencies warned that decentralisation posed a "significant threat" to the quality of the State's overseas aid programme.