Moving ministries ‘will hurt efficiency’

DECENTRALISING nine key Government departments outside Dublin will create major difficulties for decision making — especially if there is a national crisis, ministers were warned yesterday.

Former University of Limerick president Dr Edward Walsh said: "I am very concerned about moving nine of the 15 Government departments outside Dublin it is unprecedented and against all advise from other countries."

Those who run the country must be located together in order to make swift and good decisions for a proper, joined-up Government, Dr Walsh added.

"You have to have key Ministers together to talk to each other and within walking distance of each other if there is a national crisis," Dr Walsh told RTÉ.

He said Germany suffered terrible difficulties running central government when it moved the administrative capital from Bonn to Berlin and officials were split between the two locations.

"We are proposing to locate central government in nine locations from Cavan to Killarney and this issue has not even been examined or considered," he added.

And there is no documentary evidence that we will improve the quality of Government by fragmenting it and scattering it across the countryside, he said.

The former UL president wrote a special report for Government on the impact of decentralisation in which he recommended all Departments which make critical policy decisions be in one location.

It has been the experience in Japan, Malaysia and Britain that when Government departments were moved, it was to one location outside the capital.

"The focus should be on creating a counter balance to Dublin by creating regional clusters of departments possibly along the Western Corridor from Galway to Cork," Dr Walsh added.

But Junior Finance Minister Tom Parlon, who has direct responsibility for the implementation of the decentralisation programme, defended the plan.

"Ireland is a small country. If we move the Department of Social Welfare to Drogheda it is hardly going to break up the whole concept of joined up Government," Mr Parlon said.

While Mr Parlon accepted there were challenges, he said that is what the Implementation Body and secretaries general of Departments are dealing with at the moment.

Mr Parlon added he had confidence that both the Government and senior civil servants would come up with innovative solution to deal with it.

"We appreciate very much someone of the caliber of Dr Ed Walsh raising these concerns but we see that there are challenges and they will be dealt with," the Minister added.

Responding to the criticism of fragmenting the key Government departments, Mr Parlon said that Ministers would have a suite of offices in Dublin which they and their civil servants would be able to use when the Dáil is sitting. Modern technology and communications should allow Departments to deal with any difficulties.

"We are making a very big fuss of all of this the further anyone will be from Dublin will be 100 miles and with modern communications we can override all these," Mr Parlon added.