Decentralisation plan cobbled together - Labour

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, was today accused of "cobbling together" plans to decentralise eight Government departments "to take the bare look off the Budget."

Mr McCreevy announced the radical measure in his Budget speech in the Dail on Wednesday. The plan will see more than 10,000 civil servants moving outside the capital within three years.

But the Labour Party today criticised how the Minister went about announcing the plan saying senior civil servants were only told of the decision 48 hours before it was announced in the Dail. The party's spokesman on Environment and Local Government, Mr Eamon Gilmore also said the move would create a "two-tier Government.

"Why are the Departments headed by the Minister, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the President of the Progressive Democrats Party and the two powerful Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Health and Children, the heirs apparent, not on the transfer list?" Mr Gilmore asked.

"Will we now have two-tier Government in which a premier division of powerful Departments, coincidentally headed by the politically most powerful Ministers, is based in Dublin, while all the other Departments are scattered to the 53 centres selected?"

"There is now little doubt that Minister McCreevy's so-called decentralisation plan was cobbled together to take the bare look off the Budget.

"The Minister said in his Budget speech that decentralisation proposals were first mooted in Budget 2000. Therefore the affected departments must have been in discussion with the Minister over the last three years. The Minister should be able to tell us about these discussions," he added.

Green Party Finance spokesperson, Mr Dan Boyle, accused the Government of "pork barrel politics"

He said members of the Government were "climbing over each other to take credit for delivering Government Departments to their constituents."

Junior minister Mr Ivor Callely said today the decentralisation programme offered "a tremendous opportunity for balanced regional development".