Just 20 per cent of 1,700 specialists whose jobs have been earmarked for decentralisation have indicated they are willing to move, according to new figures from Government departments and State agencies.
The figures suggest that the vast majority of civil servants in highly-specialised or skilled positions, including legal, financial, IT and scientific areas, are unwilling to move when their positions are decentralised.
The details, which were collated by Fine Gael from more than 60 separate parliamentary questions in the past two weeks, also suggest that a high number of decentralising posts are being filled by people on promotion or through recruitment.
It has also transpired that just 200 civil servants out of a potential 6,000 whose jobs are decentralising but who are remaining in Dublin have been reassigned to positions that are remaining in the capital.
Yesterday Fine Gael's finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the revelations in the figures raised fundamental questions about the Government's decentralisation plan, and belied claims by the Government that it was proceeding smoothly.
He said it suggested the programme was facing serious problems, with the potential of huge additional expense in hiring or training additional specialist staff. This was combined with a lack of positions for some 6,000 civil servants who were not decentralising from the capital.
The figures collected by Mr Bruton cover three-quarters of the decentralisation posts as some Government departments and agencies were unable to provided detailed figures on the status of their plans.
The figures show that in some departments, such as the Department of Social and Family Affairs, none of its 22 specialist staff are willing to decentralise.
The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has been forced to recruit an additional two specialists in a bid to address its problem.
In the Office of Public Works less than 5 per cent of its 163 specialist staff with expertise in areas such as property management and architecture have signed up for the move to Trim.
"On the face of it this means that the Government will have to find new people to fill almost 85 per cent of the specialist positions," Mr Bruton said. "It represents a frightening prospect of the melt down of core skills within the public service."
However, a spokesman for the Department of Finance, which is overseeing the decentralisation programme, said the figures could not be taken literally.
He said there was a process in place through the Labour Relations Commission to address any key issues, and that the department was confident that this would begin to address solutions to problems identified in the decentralisation programme.
"We have always said that this process was going to take time to finalise," he said, adding that most of the first wave of decentralising departments would not be moving for a further two to three years.