Instead of presiding over a "big bang" approach to the decentralisation of an estimated 10,000 civil and public servants, it would seem the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, will have to settle for the piecemeal relocation of Dublin-based officials over a period of years. In his Budget of thirteen months ago, Mr McCreevy announced that he would relocate "almost entire Government Departments" to provincial towns and cities and that both commercial and non-commercial State bodies would be affected. It was intended that formal Government decisions on the receiving towns and cities would be made within a matter of months, although the planning, tendering and construction process for new offices could take from two to three years.
Objections by the largest public service union, the CPSU, to unpopular transfers for its members and to a lack of transparency and consultation, caused some delay. There was further slippage when the Tanaiste and leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Harney, insisted the exercise should not generate a repeat of the earlier behaviour of three Fianna Fail ministers who had unashamedly transferred sections of their own Departments to their constituencies.
Finally, as Mark Brennock reports today, there was concern within Fianna Fail that a detailed announcement of the successful towns would disappoint and antagonise unsuccessful applicants in advance of a general election. On the urgings of the Minister for Finance, more than 100 towns and their elected representatives had lobbied hard to be included in the programme, but fewer than 30 were likely to be selected.
As happened with the National Development Plan, the Government appears reluctant to take hard political decisions that might prove unpopular at election time in key constituencies. The National Plan for the period 2000-2006 failed to include a national spatial strategy, identifying `gateway' cities and their surrounding growth towns that would receive special investment for transport, sewage, telecommunications, power and housing. Instead, the Government announced that work would begin on devising such a framework. Since then, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, has indicated that a strategy will be in place by the end of this year and that the Government will then take decisions on its preferred options. In the meantime, it would appear that commercial speculation, rather than proper planning, will drive Irish regional development. The whole thing is a mess. Of the 15,500 civil servants based in Dublin at the moment, an estimated 10,000 are scheduled to be transferred in order to reduce regional imbalance and to lessen traffic congestion in the capital. Other positive effects would involve the freeing up of accommodation in Dublin. Their adopted communities could expect to enjoy higher retail sales and general prosperity. A Cabinet sub-committee will consider the matter within the next few weeks and decide on the implementation of the programme. If delays in the decentralisation process were grounded in the need for proper long-term planning and regional development, they would be acceptable. The worst of all worlds would be a piecemeal programme rooted in clientelism and electoral advantage.