The Government has bluntly told the country's highest-ranking civil servants not to oppose plans to transfer 10,000 civil and public servants out of Dublin. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports.
The tough line was adopted after it emerged that a number of the heads of Government Departments have serious reservations about the reforms.
"The reality is that it is politicians who are supposed to make the policy and civil servants who are supposed to implement it," said the Tánaiste, Ms Harney.
"The people that make decisions at the Cabinet table are not civil servants, they are Ministers.
"If civil servants are making the policy in some Departments, I think that reflects more on the Ministers that lead those Departments.
"That should not be the case," she added.
The secretaries general of Departments were informed by the Minister for Finance of the decentralisation plans only last Monday.
Mr McCreevy was angered yesterday that the concerns of some of the Civil Service's senior management had entered the public arena.
Senior officials fear that transferring policymaking officials out of Dublin will further strengthen the hand of the Departments of Finance and the Taoiseach at the expense of all others.
The Government's determination to move quickly has been underlined by its decision to give an expert group just three months to prepare the first stage of the plan.
The group, led by Mr Phil Flynn, will report to a special Cabinet sub-committee, including the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr Cullen.
The membership of the Cabinet committee has been kept deliberately small.
The other members of the Implementation Committee are Mr Dermot Quigley (former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners), Ms Jane Williams (managing director, Sia Group), Mr Fred Devlin (chartered surveyor), Mr Eddie Sullivan (secretary general, PSMD, Department of Finance) and Mr Sean Benton (chairman, Office of Public Works).
The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, who already has important offices in Athlone, is particularly keen to move his Department to Mullingar quickly.
Defending the lack of consultation with senior officials, the Tánaiste said previous decentralisation efforts had encountered internal opposition.
"I think it was important that it was made politically because sometimes if people have different vested interests, perhaps that comes to the foreground," she said.
"We could not allow that to stand in the way. Every time decentralisation was discussed on a serious level to move over 10,000 people lots of obstacles were put in the way. People began to see the negatives rather than the positives.
"My message to the public service is we will be able to operate efficiently and effectively from locations outside Dublin," she said.
Speaking in Dublin Castle, the Tánaiste went on: "We have to change the way we do business. This is a very small country.
"If some of our largest companies in Ireland can operate from peripheral locations in Ireland then I don't believe it is impossible for the Irish public service to operate efficiently and effectively from there."
Meanwhile, The Irish Times has learned that six out of seven assistant secretaries in one major Department have already made it clear that they will not moving out of Dublin.
The Labour Party has revealed that almost all the staff of the Legal Aid Board had to be changed when it moved to Caherciveen, Co Kerry, last year.
Forty-four of the 55 staff in the board's Dublin offices refused to go to Kerry. New personnel had to be brought in and trained, leading to significant disruptions for the office.
Emphasising the lack of preparation behind the Government's move, the Labour TD, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, produced a Dáil reply from the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, just four weeks ago, when he said no further decentralisation plans were under way in his Department.