ESRI: ‘Decentralisation a disaster’

DECENTRALISATION needs to be totally reversed, a leading think-tank has insisted.

The Economic and Social Research Institute’s Professor John Fitzgerald described the highly contentious Government policy as a “disaster” which would ultimately make the public sector much less efficient.

“When you are dealing with Government offices which are outside of Dublin it takes much longer to get responses to get action.

“We’ve acknowledged that we have had a disaster in banking... let’s acknowledge this. Reverse it and try and build a productive efficient public service out of this mess,” he told RTÉ.

Prof Fitzgerald said that while a lot of the public service works well, in the future it will have to work “better than ever” with less resources.

“It is a question of saving money in the long run,” he said.

Despite trimming the bid to move resources away from the capital to smaller regional hubs, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has refused to abandon the core principle of decentralisation.

Meanwhile, ministers faced pressure on another front as Irish Life and Permanent’s (ILP) controversial variable rate rise came into force.

Finance Minister Brian lenihan was again attacked by the opposition for doing nothing to try to influence the state-sponsored institution to change direction on the move.

Fine Gael insisted Mr Lenihan should have at least sought assurances from ILP that the move was a one-off.

Labour and consumer groups warn that other banks will now follow ILP’s lead and impose non-ECB directed rate rises in order to try and increase profits in the credit crunch.

Mr Lenihan has insisted that despite the bank being underwritten by the taxpayer, it is not his place to intervene.