Macroom labs move opposed by staff
A survey has shown that 86% of the staff “is not satisfied” to make the proposed move to Macroom, and 89% said they were “unhappy” with how decentralisation was handled.
According to a submission from the Model Farm Road staff, a major recruitment and re-training programme will be needed to staff laboratories in Macroom.
However, the Department is pressing on with relocating a total of 100 staff from Cork and Limerick labs to Macroom, and is working closely with the Office of Public Works on acquiring a site in Macroom. The Central Applications Facility (CAF), launched in 2004 to allow civil and public servants to participate in decentralisation, says that 91 applications have been made to move to Macroom. But there are serious shortfalls compared to the number of specialist staff needed at Macroom, admit Department sources.
The 10-acre Model Farm Road site houses the Brucellosis Blood Testing Lab, the Regional Veterinary Lab, and the Dairy Science Lab, serving farmers and the food industry throughout Munster.
At Limerick, the regional vet lab at Knockalisheen caters for the mid-West, and farmers as far away as south Galway fear the loss of veterinary diagnostic services, if they are forced to travel to Sligo or Macroom.
The Cork laboratory staff have put forward an alternative proposal to establish a Centre of Excellence at Model Farm Road, a “one-stop shop” for farmers, including a national brucellosis lab; regional veterinary lab; dairy science lab; a district veterinary office; the Agriculture and Environment and Structures (AES) office; the Cork Teagasc office; a conference centre; and services for forestry, horticulture, plant health, and potato farming.
In the submission, staff said a farmer in North Cork with a dead animal for veterinary analysis, who also needed to visit an AES office, could do his business three hours faster at their proposed “one-stop shop” at Model Farm Road.
