Ó Cuív says targets for decentralisation will be met 'over time'

A Cabinet Minister has predicted that the Government will meet its target of moving 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin, albeit later than anticipated.

Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív was speaking yesterday at the official opening of his department's newly decentralised offices in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo.

The department is scheduled to move its 140 staff to a new building at Knock airport in 2008 but in the meantime, half the workforce has been based in Tubbercurry since July. This is one of the first significant department moves in the decentralisation process.

Mr Ó Cuív said a planning application had been lodged for a new department building at the airport and it was hoped that construction would begin in 2007. Of the 70 staff now based in Tubbercurry, two-thirds have moved from Dublin while the remainder have relocated from other departments in Sligo and Castlebar.

Mr Ó Cuív insisted there had been no problem enticing staff to move and the only constraints were on the numbers, since the building in Tubbercurry could accommodate no more than 70. The new building at Knock will be just 15km from Tubbercurry.

He said staff at all levels from clerical officer to principal officer were now working from the west while an advertisement for a new assistant secretary stipulated the job would be based there. Mr Ó Cuív said the original target of getting 10,000 civil servants relocated by 2007 had been "a bit ambitious" but that "over time", the target would be met.