Ministerial bases do well in plan for decentralisation

THREE Government departments and the Office of Public Works will move headquarters to the constituencies of serving ministers under Charlie McCreevy’s decentralisation plan.

Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O’Donoghue will have his workplace on his own doorstep when his department transfers to Killarney in his South Kerry constituency. Agriculture and Food is earmarked for Portlaoise in the Laois-Offaly constituency, which boasts two

Offaly-based ministers, Brian Cowen in Foreign Affairs and Minister of State Tom Parlon.

Communications Minister Dermot Ahern will welcome the new HQ of Social and Family Affairs to Drogheda in his Louth constituency and Education Minister Noel Dempsey sees the Office of Public Works come to his home town of Trim, Co Meath.

The other five departments on the move do not directly fall into the electoral strongholds of serving ministers but they will be close neighbours. Environment is going to Wexford, next door to Environment Minister Martin Cullen’s Waterford home.

Defence moves to Kildare South, a stone’s throw from Charlie McCreevy, whose base is Kildare North, and Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs goes to Mayo, beside Galway-based ministers, Eamon Ó Cuív and Frank Fahey.

Education and Science will move to Westmeath, which is without a senior Government figure since Mary O’Rourke’s shock defeat in the last election, and Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has been allocated to Cavan-Monaghan, the constituency of which is also without a minister and sees Government deputies having to contend with poll-topping Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin.

Government ministers who do not have a full department coming to their constituencies do not go home empty handed. A total of 480 jobs in various sections of the Department of Justice are going to the Tipperary South home of Defence Minister Michael Smith. The bulk of the jobs bound for Cork, 600 in all, will go to Cork East, where Minister of State Michael Ahern is based, while a further 150 go to Cork South West, home of Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh.

Two hundred Department of Environment jobs will go to Waterford city, where the minister is based, and 260 jobs, mainly in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, are going to the Donegal South West constituency of Minister Mary Coughlan. Minister of State Síle De Valera’s Clare constituency will receive a total of 450 jobs in Revenue and the Irish Aviation Authority.