Fishing industry organisations have expressed mixed reactions to the Government decision to relocate Department of Marine staff to west Cork, rather than Cavan.
The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, announced in Co Cork yesterday that 90 of his Department's staff would be moved to Clonakilty as part of a new marine policy and management office.
This would create a "one-stop shop" for Government services to key marine industries, he said, as Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) has also been earmarked for Clonakilty.
The Minister denied that this represented a row-back on decentralisation plans, and has also denied that he was dismantling or shedding some of his existing brief, which ranges from natural resources to fisheries to communications.
The development reflected a streamlining of services to the sea fishing and aquaculture industries, he said, and would be assisted by further legislative restructuring of departmental service delivery and development of new integrated Internet-based e-services.
A spokesman for the Minister said yesterday that the new marine policy and management office would not be established as a separate agency and would still form an integral part of the Department, with the main offices, and some 425 staff, being moved to Cavan.
However, the maritime safety directorate will form a new agency with the Irish Coast Guard, as part of plans which will also involve closing the Irish Coast Guard's marine rescue co-ordination centre in Dublin and maintaining two centres in Valentia, Co Kerry, and Malin, Co Donegal.
Fishing industry organisations had been critical of the Government's original decision to move the entire Department to Cavan as part of the decentralisation programme announced in last year's Budget.
Cavan's only connection with commercial fisheries is the location of one fish-farm in the county.
Mr Jason Whooley of the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation said the new decision was an improvement on the Cavan plan.
"If there is to be real decentralisation, it is imperative that it should be to a coastal county," Mr Whooley said.
He said he was aware that the majority of the Department's civil servants were opposed to a move to Cavan.
This had been indicated in a survey last January which showed that fewer than 30 of the Department's staff of 560 would be keen to go to the north-east.
"The 90 involved in this move might be a bit happier at the idea of going to west Cork," he said.
However, Mr Lorcan Ó Cinnéide of the Irish Fish Producers' Organisation said he was "amazed" and "mystified" at the decision, given that there were very urgent issues facing the marine sector which the Minister should be addressing.
A recent decision to restrict the landing times for vessels catching mackerel, horse mackerel and scad was causing widespread anger in this sector, particularly in Killybegs, Co Donegal, Mr Ó Cinnéide said.
The Department says the landing times are in line with EU monitoring measures. Mr Ó Cinneide also questioned whether decentralisation would ever take place.