An overwhelming majority of respondants to a survey in the Department run by the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, have said they have no interest in moving to Carlow as part of the Government's decentralisation programme. Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter, reports
A confidential survey by the personnel unit at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment showed that only 69 of 503 respondents to a staff survey were interested in moving to Carlow.
Ms Harney has been one of the most ardent supporters of the decentralisation plan, but preliminary results from the survey show that just over a quarter of the 250 staff required are willing to move under the plan approved by the Government in this year's Budget.
The survey of the Department's 1000 staff was initiated before Christmas. The results seen by The Irish Times are based on responses received by January 7th.
They show that very few the most senior civil servants in the department have expressed interest in moving from Dublin.
It said there had been only 13 requests from staff in other Departments to move to Carlow with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
In a note to officials on Wednesday, the secretary general of the Department, Mr Paul Haran, said that "decentralisation is a process that will not happen overnight and will present considerable challenges to us all".
However, he said that the Department was "committed to fulfilling our obligations under the recent Government decision as efficiently and expediently as possible".
The note said that the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs would move to Carlow.
The following divisions of the Department are scheduled to move to Carlow: work permits, labour inspectorate, redundancy and insolvency, and employment rights.
In addition, the note said there may be a need for corporate services staff, especially in the information technology division, to be based in Carlow.
Ms Harney warned last month that civil servants were obliged to implement Government policy, after it emerged that some heads of Departments had serious reservations about the plan.
"The people that make decisions at the Cabinet table are not civil servants, they are Ministers."
The Government has left open the possibility of civil servants transferring between Departments to avail of opportunities to move to locations not covered in the plan.
But the Department's survey shows that only 160 staff are willing to move to any of the locations identified in the decentralisation.
The survey shows that only three of the 103 senior staff who responded were interested in moving to Carlow. This included those working at the assistant principal and principal officer level, and upwards.
Similarly, only 14 staff working in these grades were interested in moving to any location.
Thus most of those interested in moving to Carlow or any other location were at at lower grades, including those working as higher executive officers, executive officers and clerical officers.
In the Department of the Environment, some 35 of 40 senior civil servants who responded to a union survey last month at the Department said they did not want to move to Wexford, where the new Department headquarters is to be located, or to any other town outside Dublin.