The Government's decentralisation plan is good news for many civil servants who find Dublin life unhealthy and stressful, writes Kathy Sheridan
The politicians did themselves proud this week. Amid the most ambitious decentralisation move ever attempted by a government, the story became one of political glory-grabbing and infighting, a picture of remarkable coincidences between marginal coalition seats and chosen locations, and startlingly prescient leaflets along the lines of "Parlon Delivers!"
One reader suggested that, given the massive scale of the exercise and its obvious vulnerability to vested interests, it should have been passed to an independent commission, thus sparing people the spectacle of "ministers etc going down to their constituencies to crow about the number of civil servants they have managed to grab for their own bailiwicks, like little Caesars bearing captive slaves back to Rome".
Meanwhile, the 10,300 public and civil servants at the heart of the plans, their lives and careers, hopes and fears, featured as little more than bit-players in the process. What will happen and when, they wanted to know? What precisely does "voluntary" mean, if promotional opportunities depend on your willingness to move? Why, in a service where, as one man put it, "nowadays we're bombarded with stuff about teamwork and communications", did they have to hear about their fate from the media?
On the other hand, while the debate raged, details of a national health survey emerged which suggest that Charlie McCreevy might be Santa Claus after all. The move out of Dublin may be the best Christmas present the 10,300 and their families could ever hope for. The National Health and Lifestyle Surveys 2003 (SLAN) and Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC), further analysed, show that the closer you live to O'Connell Street, the more unhealthy you are likely to be.
"The Dublin effect was strong," said the report, before launching into figures which showed that, for alcohol intake, the Dubs took the medals almost every time. Compared to the south-east, twice as many people drank five or more times a week and nearly twice as many living in north Dublin were likely to exceed the recommended weekly intake. The east somehow produced significantly fewer non-drinkers. There were more drinking and driving offenders in the east. The highest reported use of cannabis (16 per cent in the east compared to 5 per cent in the west, for example), marijuana and ecstasy was in the east. The highest rates of obesity were in the east, particularly in the north inner city. Among non-medical card holders, the highest smoking rates were among those living in north Dublin; the lowest were in the west.
That much of this is attributable to education and level of affluence is clear. How much of it is down to the daily stress of living and working in the capital is not.
"Stress" means different things to different people. Some civil servants caught in the current uncertainty define stress as the absence of information. And no doubt there is definable stress in having your life suddenly turned upside down on a wet Wednesday by a Dáil speech. But what price the stress for a 28-year-old Dubliner, still living with his parents, who may never be able to afford his own home? Or the unpredictable daily commuting grind for someone working in the city centre? Or the frustration of a parent who wants to rear his children in a safe neighbourhood and with access to more than a tiny handkerchief of garden?
For all the uncertainty around the issue, the indications are that there are many more civil servants wanting to move out than there are available places. A Dáil question put down by Deputy Denis Naughten of Fine Gael last March elicited the information that no fewer than 18,000 requests to get out of Dublin had been made. Some 7,800 of these were from the Department of Justice, followed by Social Welfare and Agriculture. The caveat is that the 18,000 figure does not necessarily reflect 18,000 civil servants - out of a staff of more than 29,000 - wanting to move, rather that some have made multiple applications.
Nonetheless, what can be verified is that in Naughten's own constituency town of Roscommon, where the process of decentralising50 General Registry Office jobs - begun 12 years ago - is only half complete, the remaining 25 jobs are being chased by 197 applicants. And these applicants are not from the lowest grades, as is widely assumed. They include two assistant principal officers, 12 higher executive officers and 42 executive officers.
While the Land Registry's 230 jobs are now also destined for the town, this would satisfy much less than half the number of requests for a transfer to the county.
The other popular assumption is that the applicants are all culchies, as befits the stereotypical civil servant. But a few calls this week by The Irish Times to civil servants who availed of previous decentralisation opportunities, found a Rialto man blissfully happy in Clonakilty; a Coolock native who won't be shifted from Limerick; and a couple from Finglas and Artane raising a family in Ennis.
Hugh O'Reilly, a 43-year-old Agriculture official, is a "Dub born and bred" in Rialto, always "feared" decentralisation. Five years ago, he was living in Tallaght with his wife and two small children. Their lifestyle was no different to that of many: a house with a few feet of garden front and back, dropping two-and-a-half-year-old Niamh into his wife's sister's at 7.30 a.m., giving themselves an hour-and-a-half to get into the office for nine, before turning around to do the same in the evening, arriving home to close the door and "never see another soul from one end of the day to the next".
He vividly remembers the moment that prompted him to re-think their lives. "It was a bank holiday weekend. We were visiting the sister's house which had about half an acre of field out the back and we were barely out of the car when I saw Niamh just take off, shooting down the path into the field. That's when I decided to decentralise to west Cork. I said to my wife we'd give it two years and she said okay."
They sold the house in Tallaght, bought a site near Clonakilty with a sea view and built a home now valued at around €450,000.
"People are exceptionally nice. They know you by your name here. I don't wake up in the night worrying that I haven't locked the car. Our son is in a school with about 76 pupils. I'm chairman of the parents' association and do the parish newsletter. I've found what I'm looking for here. I'd never go back . . ." Significantly, his siblings have all moved from Dublin and all his good friends.
Michael Bolton, a 33-year-old Revenue official from Coolock, fetched up in Limerick eight years ago. "I was born in Dublin but I just wanted to get out. I felt there was nothing there for me." Living at home with his parents at a time when house prices were starting to spiral, the promotional opportunities were one aspect, he says. He tried Wexford first but found it "a bit quiet". In Limerick he has found his niche.
"It really has developed as a city in recent years. The social life is brilliant and it's definitely healthier, absolutely," says the former triathlon athlete. As a keen cyclist (it's a five-minute cycle to work in the city centre) and member of a cycling club, it's "much quicker" to get out of the city, he says; there is fishing nearby and the golf courses - unlike Dublin's - are both accessible and affordable. He also owns his own home now, having paid €157,000 for a four-bed semi which would have cost another €100,000 back in Coolock. "I doubt if, on civil service wages, I'd own my own house even now had I stayed in Dublin."
The only thing he misses is his parents. "But I am absolutely here to stay. I don't even think of myself as a Dub anymore."
The real test for those who decentralise is when opportunities arise to return to Dublin. Michael Bolton turned it down, as did Shane, a Revenue official (who prefers to remain anonymous). He moved from Finglas to Ennis, via Shannon, moved back to Dublin for a year, finally moving back west.
"It's about quality of life, about having time for yourself. The work is just as hard but there's no commuting, everything is closer, the pace of life is much slower. Work is only five to 10 minutes from home and you haven't the stress of worrying how long it's going to take to get there . . . In Dublin, it would have taken me at least an hour to commute to work. The house I own here would have cost three times more in Dublin."
The more relaxed days mean time for long walks, cooking, less resorting to convenience foods, less stress. But he doesn't pretend that it's perfect.
"I miss my family. Socially I miss concerts and soccer matches - you don't get a lot of that here - and travelling out of the country is not as easy. I'd say 90 per cent of the time we'd be travelling from Dublin. Sometimes, I'd be thinking of moving back, then I'd go up to Dublin for a week and I'd say ah, no . . . God, the amount of time people spend driving . . ."