The Minister of State, Mr Tom Parlon, has urged younger public servants to view decentralisation as a "fast track to promotion" and to sign up for the plan to move 10,000 staff out of Dublin.
Mr Parlon, who is responsible for driving the decentralisation programme, said yesterday that he expected that some older public service staff who were close to retirement would choose not to move out of the capital. He hoped, therefore, that some younger staff would realise that if they were to move, they "might move up the ladder" quickly. "There is a lot of incentive salary-wise to move up a grade", he said.
The general secretary of the Association of Higher Civil Servants, Mr Seán Ó Riordáin, said last night that he did not know what Mr Parlon had in mind. "I don't know is he saying that posts in decentralised offices at certain grades that can't be filled by transferring people can be filled by promotion. There has been no talk about additional promotions."
He restated that the official figures showed that an average of just 7.5 per cent of the staff in civil service departments to be decentralised were willing to move. "That means you have to transfer out 92.5 per cent of the staff and replace them from elsewhere. We don't see how you can do that without lasting damage to the civil service, and the situation in the State agencies is worse."
Mr Parlon said there were no additional incentives "on the table". But he believed the prospect of faster promotion for those who moved should encourage many younger staff to take part in the programme.
In the past, he said, those who moved to decentralised offices had limited career opportunities because the size of the offices outside the capital were small. However the scale of this plan would change that.
"A principal officer in the Department of Education in Tullamore could easily apply to be an assistant secretary in the Department of Agriculture in Portlaoise," he said.
He also said that the Departments and agencies which moved would be more likely to be able to introduce new work practices and more modern information technology systems. "Where Departments moved before, it gave opportunities to introduce new work practices." He said he thought that "some people have turned their minds against this totally and haven't examined the positives", and that 40 per cent of the required number of civil servants had already applied to move to decentralised locations.