Ahern admits decentralisation plan is 'a difficult exercise'

The Taoiseach’s doubts about Government decentralisation spell the beginning of the end of the plan, it was claimed today.

Bertie Ahern revealed in a newspaper interview this morning that the controversial 2003 scheme to relocate 10,600 Government staff to 50 locations outside Dublin within three years was proving difficult because the time frame was too short.

Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, who criticised the plan in the Dáil this week, said Mr Ahern was finally conceding that uprooting civil and public servants and their families from their homes was impossible.

Former Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy unveiled the ambitious plan in his Budget in December 2003.

“The Taoiseach has basically conceded that it is the beginning of the end of McCreevy’s decentralisation plan,” Mr Rabbitte said today.

“It was ill-thought out, unworkable and the forcible relocation and uprooting of families in Dublin was never going to work. You could have had a planned and negotiated approach to decentralisation that would contribute to balanced regional development.”

Speaking about the Government plan, Mr Ahern told the Irish Independent: “We might have taken too much on in one go.”

He added: “We put ourselves in too tight a time frame.

“There are a huge amount of people who want to go, but the management of that - of who can go, what grades, and how – is a difficult exercise.”

The Impact union warned last week it was planning a lobbying campaign for the next General Election as dissatisfaction with decentralisation was a major issue for Dublin voters

The union, which represents 1,200 civil servants and state agency staff earmarked for relocation, described the plan as an unworkable mess.

It said in a policy document that replacing specialist civil servants like engineers and architects who choose to stay in Dublin could cost €65m a year.

Mr Ahern also confirmed today that the next General Election would be next summer but he hadn’t chosen a date yet.

He said the Progressive Democrats were his priority as Coalition partners but he would have no difficulty going sharing power with Labour although he viewed the party’s leader, Pat Rabbitte, as ’the fly in the ointment’.

“A Fianna Fáil-Labour government would be a very successful government if it were to happen, but it’s been ruled out by the Labour party,” he said.

But Mr Rabbitte said today: “The Labour Party doesn’t exist to put Fianna Fáil back into Government. It is arrogant on Bertie Ahern’s part to think that he can ignore the democratic wishes of the party conference.”