Civil servants to get €50m for ‘nothing’

THE State will end up paying €50 million a year to professional civil servants for doing nothing unless Junior Finance Minister Tom Parlon can find them meaningful work in Dublin, the IMPACT trade union warned yesterday.

The 850 specialist grade civil servants - mainly engineers, architects, professional valuers and Third World community development experts - do not want to move out of Dublin under Mr Parlon’s decentralisation plan. Most of these work with the Department of the Environment, which is being decentralised to Wexford, and the Department of Foreign Affairs section, which is being moved to Limerick.

Both Mr Parlon and the Taoiseach gave a commitment to civil servants who do not want to move outside Dublin that “meaningful jobs” would be found for those who wish to stay, said IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan.