Relocation of 10,000 civil servants impossible, admits chief whip

Ambitious plans to relocate 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin are impossible, the Government chief whip admitted tonight.

Three and a half years since decentralisation began, Tom Parlon TD, who is charged with running the scheme, revealed it was failing.

The Progressive Democrat TD praised the project, initiated by former Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy, saying it was a brilliant plan and very ambitious.

“But in terms of it being deliverable as he [Mr McCreevy] said, before the next general election, it is impossible when you get into the nitty gritty,” Mr Parlon said.

The chief whip said it was a mammoth task on a human resources level, retraining staff and allowing workers to move departments.

“It is actually one of the biggest infrastructural projects ever undertaken by the state,” he said.

The revelation came after 50 FAS employees picketed the agency’s headquarters on Dublin’s Baggot Street against plans to decentralise them to Birr, Co Offaly.

Mr Parlon’s admission is a total u-turn from just over one year ago when he rejected claims by the country’s leading think-tank, the ESRI, that decentralisation was not progressing quickly enough.

He said an achievable timetable had been set with 1,000 places to be filled at the end of 2006, 3,000 at the end of 2007 and the progress would continue until 2009.

And he claimed buying sites in 53 locations around the country was a long process.

“Certainly there are problems but I think everyone today acknowledged that the bulk of the project is working extremely well and of course the opposition honed in on the FAS and the ones where there are problems,” he told RTE Radio.

“Clearly I accept there are problems and I fully commit myself and the Government to working very, very hard to solving those problems.”

Meanwhile, the Government Chief Whip insisted that he meant no offence after he compared Limerick to deepest Africa.

“Any suggestion that I was trying to be racist is ridiculous,” he said.