9,000 civil servants apply for decentralisation jobs

Almost 9,000 civil and public servants have applied to be relocated under the Government's decentralisation plans, according to figures released by the Department of Finance today.

The figure marks a 60% increase on the numbers who had applied for decentralised jobs in July.

Some 3,711 applicants want to leave Dublin and 3,350 already living in provincial areas have applied to move to new decentralisation locations.

Meanwhile 525 Dublin-based civil servants are interested in moving to existing provincial locations and 566 civil servants already working outside Dublin are interested in moving to a different provincial location.

A further 806 state agency workers are interested in some form of move.

The Government is hoping to move 10,000 Dublin-based workers to more than 50 locations throughout the country as part of the decentralisation plans.

Trade unions representing civil and public servants fear the move could damage the level of services provided by Government departments and state agencies because specialist staff and policy experts are not interested in leaving their current locations.

Nevertheless outgoing Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy said the figures were “hugely encouraging” and claimed they were proof the controversial programme was well on track to succeed.

“The level of applications received to date prove that there is a real appetite for the Government’s decentralisation programme,” he said.

There have been applications for 80% of civil service jobs advertised outside the capital.

But the programme is clearly more popular with lower grade staff with just 32% of specialist staff from state agencies applying to move.

Certain areas have proved more popular than others. Vacancies in Drogheda and Newbridge are oversubscribed while there has been little interest expressed in jobs in Donegal, Cavan, Portlaoise and Waterford.

Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, announced his plan to move 10,300 public servants out of Dublin in last year’s budget. The deadline for priority applications was September 7.