If all had gone according to plan last December, some 10,300 public servants would have relocated with their jobs to eight departments in 53 locations in 25 counties outside Dublin.
It did not happen. Most likely, it will never happen. This week, the latest progress report by the Decentralisation Implementation Group showed that a mere 15 per cent of that number have moved.
And of those who did, many have relocated not from Dublin which was the original intention but from other parts of the country. That has defeated one of the main points of an exercise which was designed to relieve population congestion in Dublin by achieving more balanced regional development.
From the outset, the decentralisation plan was ill-conceived. It has since proved unworkable. Nearly everyone, save the Government which was the architect of this spectacular debacle, now accepts this. Ministers have persisted in their folly.
They were not for turning on decentralisation, it seemed, unless under the duress of some irresistible pressure. They have, however, succumbed now to such a force and turned. As reported in yesterday's editions, the Revenue Commissioners advised the Minister for Finance that the plan to relocate computer staff to Kildare was simply unworkable.
Decentralisation is a voluntary choice and as his staff were unwilling to leave Dublin, Revenue chairman Frank Daly warned that the resulting job vacancies in Kildare could not be filled by those with similar professional skills. Because this had adverse implications for the State's tax collection capacity, the Government relented and has dropped that part of its grand decentralisation design.
The decentralisation blueprint was drawn up by three members of government - Bertie Ahern, Mary Harney, and Charlie McCreevy - in conditions of great secrecy and outlined in the 2003 budget. The plan surprised cabinet colleagues who had been told the details just hours before the public were informed.
The plan was drafted without a proper analysis of the financial cost, without any assessment of the likely public benefit, and without any prior consultation with the public servants who were being asked to relocate on a voluntary basis.
In selecting the areas for the relocated departments, the Government ignored also its own National Spatial Strategy which is meant to achieve greater regional balance. Most of the planned job relocations were in areas outside the growth centres outlined in that national planning framework.
The Government, in implementing its decentralisation plan, has now missed all the deadlines and targets originally set. What from day one was meant to be a self-financing exercise has instead become a hugely expensive and wasteful folly. Decentralisation needs to be reviewed and revised, amended and greatly scaled down.
The Government should undertake the task this time in consultation with those whose voluntary co-operation is essential to the success of such a programme, the public service workers.