Where I stand on decentralisation

YOUR reporter Fionnán Sheahan’s re-hash of Tom Parlon’s critique of opposition views of decentralisation (Irish Examiner, August 12) is just as superficial as were the original remarks of Minister Parlon.

If your reporter had done some research of his own, rather than simply regurgitate Mr Parlon’s words, he would have discovered that, in my Dáil speech on this, I made a clear distinction between the relocation of back-office type functions out of Dublin and the relocation of headquarters functions.

I believe that, for the sake of the coherence of policymaking, the headquarter functions of Government agencies should all be in the one place, ie, the capital city (whatever city that is).