THE decentralisation of Department of Agriculture and Food laboratories to Macroom, Co Cork, is on track, Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan disclosed during a visit to the town yesterday.

The Department of Environment hopes to re-locate 40 of it's staff to new offices in Wexford by the middle of next year under the decentralisation programme.

CIVIL servants in Dublin will never co-operate with the decentralisation programme while they continue to be treated as commodities, the country’s largest trade union claimed last night.

ONLY 2,000 of 10,600 public servants will have moved to decentralised posts by the end of 2007, the date the Government originally promised the programme would be completed.

More than 2,000 civil servants will have decentralised to 29 towns and cities by the end of next year, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said today.

No employees at Bord Iascaigh Mhara are willing to decentralise to Clonakilty, union leaders claimed today despite plans for a €20m headquarters for the body in the town.

ONLY 620 of the 10,300 civil servants due to be decentralised have been assigned to locations outside Dublin, 18 months after the scheme was announced, it emerged yesterday.

BERTIE AHERN yesterday turned the tables on one of the most trenchant critics of the Government’s decentralisation programme, Professor Ed Walsh, and also lashed the “gombeen” opposition to the plan.

OUTSIDE experts will be hired to hold focus groups to find out why civil servants don't want to leave Dublin.

The exodus of civil servants from the capital is to begin over the next few weeks, Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh announced today.

The Central Applications Facility (CAF) which will allow public servants apply to participate in the Government's Decentralisation Programme with immediate effect, has been launched.

Phil Flynn, trade union boss-turned business troubleshooter has a proven track record in solving industrial disputes. He now heads the Government’s controversial decentralisation strategy. KYRAN FITZGERALD reports.