Decentralisation plan - Big bang turns into a whimper

ALMOST a year after the Government unveiled its much vaunted plan to move 10,000 public service workers out of Dublin to cities and towns around the country, progress has been embarrassingly slow.

So slow, in fact, that Fine Gael could be forgiven for claiming the plan is unravelling. Clearly the Coalition is having a hard time convincing many people to buy into the scheme.

Far from achieving its ambitious ‘big-bang’ movement of civil servants to 53 locations up and down the country by 2007, only 3,500 will be transferred to 28 locations in the first two phases.