McCreevy launches system where civil servants are invited to list preferred towns and cities for transfers, write Chris Dooley and Carl O'Brien
The Government's decentralisation programme was hit by a new dispute yesterday within hours of the launch of an official application system for staff.
The web-based Central Applications Facility (CAF) invites civil and public servants to submit a list of towns and cities to which they would like to transfer under the programme.
SIPTU, however, immediately announced that it was advising members not to co-operate with the scheme in its present form.
The union represents 1,500 staff in about 20 State agencies earmarked for decentralisation in the programme announced by the Government in December.
It wants to move 10,000 civil and public servants to 53 locations outside Dublin within three years.
The new applications facility, which can be accessed at www.publicjobscaf.ie, is modelled on the CAO system for allocating places in third-level education.
Staff who apply on or before July 8th have been told they will be given preference over those who apply later, although the system will remain in place after that date.
Those wishing to remain in Dublin have been told not to state a preference now.
A separate facility is to be established for Dublin-based staff later, asking for preferences should it be necessary to reassign individuals to other organisations.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, who launched the facility yesterday, said it was "a crucial piece in the decentralisation jigsaw, and central to the programme's successful implementation".
Announcing its decision to boycott the system, SIPTU official Mr Owen Reidy said a range of legal, contractual and industrial relations issues remained to be resolved.
For example, he said, many employees of State agencies were contracted to work for that organisation only. Unlike civil servants, they could not simply transfer from one department to another.
It had not been explained what would happen to such workers if they wished to remain in Dublin and their posts were decentralised. His union had been unable to get answers to these and other questions from either the Department of Finance or the employers concerned.
SIPTU also objected to the fact that members were being "denied the right" to express the wish to remain in Dublin with their present employer under the system set up yesterday.
Mr Reidy said 95 per cent of the 1,500 SIPTU members affected by the programme wished to remain in Dublin.
Nevertheless, the level of applications to the CAF will be seen as the first real indicator of the demand to relocate outside Dublin.
A spokesman for the Minister said they expected an initial rush of applicants, and that officials would have a good impression of demand for certain locations in the first week in July.
This information, along with property details, will be used by a special committee, the decentralisation implementation group, to advise which departments or agencies should be included in the first round of jobs to be transferred outside the capital.