The Government is absolutely determined to deliver on its planned decentralisation programme, writes Charlie McCreevy
The decentralisation programme announced on Budget Day is radical and will change the way all of us work and think. The Government consciously decided that a programme as substantial as that announced could only work if entire Departments were relocated.
It is important to understand that the relocation of departmental HQs will include the ministers concerned, their secretaries-general, and all their senior management. Contrary to some media suggestions, there is no question of these Departments retaining an "aireacht" presence in Dublin.
The idea that senior management would remain in Dublin, isolating them from the rest of the Department, makes absolutely no sense.
One of the key features of the programme is that it maintains the tradition of voluntary relocation. Nobody will be obliged to relocate against their will. This has been an essential feature of previous programmes and will be central to this one.
There are thousands of public servants commuting daily to Dublin, some from the immediately neighbouring counties of Wicklow, Kildare and Meath, but many others from even further away. This programme offers these people the prospect of a significantly improved quality of life by providing work much closer to home. For many others, there is the opportunity to start a new life outside the capital.
Those who doubt that there will be sufficient interest in this option often refer to previous difficulties in attracting sufficient numbers to particular locations. My view is that the single biggest impediment to encouraging sufficient numbers to relocate has been the lack of prospects for career development. This impediment has now been removed.
I believe that an individual who joins the Civil Service is entitled to aspire to becoming secretary-general one day. The new programme means this can become a real aspiration for staff serving outside Dublin. There will be nine secretaries-general working in provincial locations from Drogheda to Killarney and Wexford to Knock Airport.
The Implementation Group, chaired by Mr Phil Flynn, has been charged with preparing a detailed plan by the end of March, and is already hard at work.
I am particularly encouraged by the enthusiasm of my ministerial colleagues to see the programme implemented. They have responsibility for driving their individual elements of the programme. I want also to express my appreciation of the positive response of the respective secretaries-general and the way they have indicated their determination to give expeditious effect to the Government's decision.
I have provided €20 million to meet any up-front investment in 2004. I have repeatedly made it clear that this applies only to 2004 and is effectively a down-payment on the Government's very strong commitment to the programme's implementation.
I said before the announcement that there could not be a simple defined set of criteria on the basis of which decisions in relation to a new programme would be taken. That is the case. In the Budget documentation we detailed a range of factors which were taken into account in selecting the Departments/agencies for inclusion in the programme as well as in selecting the locations for the decentralised offices.
While account was clearly taken of the spatial strategy, there were other considerations. The Government has, for example, decided to locate the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture and Food in Portlaoise. I regard this as reasonable given the existing presence of the Department in the town and the transport links to and from Dublin. It seems to me to make eminent sense, yet Portlaoise is neither a gateway nor a hub.
Some have criticised what they see as the absence from the programme of the designated gateways and hubs. The reality, however, is that when this programme is implemented there will be a substantial presence of civil servants in virtually every gateway and hub. Virtually all of the locations included in the programme are explicitly mentioned in the strategy.
This programme is a statement of the Government's confidence in the regions. The Government is firmly of the view that it is possible to provide public services from provincial centres. We would never embark on such a substantial programme if we thought that it would in any way compromise the effective delivery of important, and indeed vital, public services.
As well as the imbalance of public service jobs in Dublin, there is also an imbalance of private sector jobs in the east of the country.
The Government is giving a lead which I hope will be followed by private sector enterprises. I hope that foreign companies investing in Ireland will show more willingness to locate in provincial centres. Only then will we begin to see a reversal of the existing regional imbalance.
The programme includes 1,335 jobs which have yet to be allocated. These include 850 information technology jobs in a number of Departments as well as 500 staff from the health sector - including the new Health Services Executive (incorporating the National Hospitals' Office, the Primary, Community and Continuing Care Pillar and the Shared Services Centre) and the Health Information and Quality Authority.
In addition, the Government has decided that, save in exceptional circumstances, any new body/agency being established in the future should be located in areas compatible with the decentralisation programme.
I believe that the final total could be closer to 12,000 jobs. The Government is absolutely determined to deliver this programme. I have already put an Implementation Committee in place and provided resources to meet up-front investment costs this year. Anybody with any interest in the programme and its successful implementation can be assured of the Government's resolve in this regard.
Charlie McCreevy is Minister for Finance