Santa’s helpers refuse to budge

Problem? What problem? It my take three years. It may take four years.

“It’s a bit like Christmas. It always comes,” philosophised the supreme Sheikh outside his tent at Fianna Fáil’s decentralised location at Ballybrit.

Listen lads, Government ministers wearily explained this week, we shouldn’t bother too much with the cribbing from the Ebenezers in the opposition and media - those who peddle “nonsense and lies”.

We’re not sure when or how, but Christmas will come and with it the turkey that is decentralisation.

Problems? What problems? Well the first is that Charlie McCreevy used six-inch nails when he hammered his colours to the mast last December. It will all happen in three years, he said. As sure as rain in November.

But the moment that Mr McCreevy is muscled over to Brussels, suddenly a whole raft of revisionism emerges, mar dhea.

Then, you get the ten-pin bowling phenomenon. One Minister says, well, you know, maybe the three-year target is a trifle ambitious. And before you know it the whole Cabinet is bowled over like skittles. One week, the message is that the three-year target will be met. The next it’s that there is general recognition that it might not happen within the time scale, but that it will happen.

“Eye-catching initiatives” have become a staple of government here and elsewhere over the past decade.

At their most shallow, they are designed to maximise positive publicity and distract attention away from the more negative stuff associated with Government. The initiative on once-off rural housing and the fiasco on electronic voting are classic examples. The smoking ban and penalty points were indeed attention-grabbing but were underpinned by long-term and strategic objectives.

Where does decentralisation fit into all of this? Was the announcement, as the opposition has alleged, a political stunt introduced to veer attention away from an otherwise flat, minimalist and mean budget? Or was Mr McCreevy genuinely embracing the “vision thing”?

When the goodies of Government came to be divvied out, there was no better man at jostling to get his nose into the trough. Aside from Santa’s Kingdom, Kildare did particularly well out of National Lottery sports grants over the years.

And of the 10,300 jobs being decentralised almost 1,500 (or 10%) will go to Co Kildare.

Problem? What problem? The second report of Phil Flynn’s implementation group is far more positive than many people expected. The group is not unduly concerned about the low level of interest.

The group goes on to say (in a chapter laden with tortured jargonese) that it is convinced that “joined-up Government” (ie face-to-face contact between policy makers) won’t suffer as a result of Departments being scattered all over the country.

The net message is that it can be done though it does acknowledge there are challenges.

What is certain is that there are some challenges that may just be insuperable. And they reflect a cavalier, ill-thought out and back-of-a-racing docket approach from the Minister.

No matter what gloss the Government puts on it, it’s attempts to shift 28 State Agencies out of Dublin already look doomed to failure. Only 42 employees in the agencies have said they will follow their jobs out of Dublin. That’s out of 2,225 jobs.

What genius came up with the idea of shunting 200 Bus Eireann employees to Mitchelstown when the most who can possibly transfer is 80 or 90? Or moving the valuation office to Youghal which will mean a bit of a commute for the valuer for Donegal?

And then, Navan is over-subscribed according to the Central Applications Facility (CAF). But then we find out that over 80 of the positions are for probation officers and not a single one has applied as of early July. And the National Roads Authority staff don’t want to go to Ballinasloe.

Yes, the uptake in the civil service is better. But there’s a problem there too. Of the 5,811 staff who have applied to the CAF, 2,356 are already working in provincial locations.

“We believe the overall figures for the civil service represents an encouraging start,” concluded the group.

But given all the fireworks, the process will need to go through Hell before it reaches Connacht.