Shifting civil servants might also change the metropolitan mentality

DECENTRALISATION of the civil service is a good idea.

While there may be some limited short-term pain, ultimately this decision to locate half of our civil service throughout the regions will be seen as a good for our public administration and good for our country’s development.

One of the reasons decentralisation will, in the medium to long term, strengthen our public administration is that it will widen the pool of people from which the civil service will be recruited. Being Dublin-based does not give one a monopoly on public administration skills and abilities. Spreading civil service employment opportunities around the country will introduce greater geographic equality in this country. Those born, reared and educated outside of the capital will no longer have to pay the personal and lifestyle price of moving to Dublin in order to exercise the option of applying for civil service jobs.