Moving Irish Aid to Limerick City a wrong decision?

Brennans Row

Moving Irish Aid 'wrong decision'

THE HEAD of Ireland’s overseas aid programme at the time of its decentralisation to Limerick has now described the move as “a wrong decision”.

Ronan Murphy, who acted as director general of Irish Aid for eight years, was speaking this week at the launch of his book Inside Irish Aid: The Impulse to Help.

The relocation of the overseas aid branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs from Dublin was part of former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy’s 2003 decentralisation plan.

“I have to say I was part of it in the sense of having to implement it,” said Mr Murphy.

“But to take a programme which had its contacts and centres in Dublin – now we were treated very well down in Limerick when we went down to do the move – but I would have to say I think it should not have been done.”

Mr Murphy said the organisation was promised at the time that Limerick was a popular destination but, he added: “I think it just wasn’t properly thought through.”

The move was heavily criticised at the time amid concerns that the relocation would affect the quality of Ireland’s overseas aid programme.

Two years ago, Dóchas, the umbrella group for overseas aid agencies, called for a review of the decision after former Fianna Fáil minister for overseas aid Tom Kitt labelled it a “crude and botched initiative”.

Mr Murphy’s book explores the journey Ireland’s aid programme has taken since its £1 million budget in the 1970s to its expanded budget of €920 million in 2008, when Ireland was the sixth-largest donor per head in the world.

Despite the recession, Mr Murphy said it was important Irish Aid did not slip down the agenda. Former president Mary Robinson and Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore were guests of honour at the launch.

„While Ireland’s economic reputation may have been tarnished in recent years, the fundamental values of our society represented by our aid programme have not been questioned and are contributing to our efforts to rebuild our reputation overseas,” Mr Gilmore said.


© 2012 The Irish Times

So in other words a public sector agency based in Limerick City had a €920 million budget in 2008 to spend on helping some of the poorest countries in world, but the quality of their work was some what comprised by a few Dublin contacts because they were too inconvenienced to travel the two hour M7 motorway journey to Limerick?

Could one imagine such a scenario happening in the private sector?

phill106

Surely the reason for decentralisation was that ireland was too dublin orientated?
If only there was some way for people to contact far away people without travelling...

zulutango

I would think that it's far too early to say whether the move is a good one or not. Ireland needs to develop one or two other big cities over the next few decades if it is to develop to its potential, and in that context, the move is probably a very appropriate one. It may have effected the Department's efficiency in the short term, and that's to be expected, but there is a bigger picture that must be considered.

Amazotheamazing

Far be for me to praise any FF plan but there was a certain merit to some sort of decentralisation, albeit, imo it should only have been to Cork, Galway and Limerick.

Of course, FF immediately ****ed up the process by the usual feudal crap which meant each gombeen-ran area had to get a cut.

zulutango

Fianna Fáil (and PDs) took a fairly sound idea and applied their unique brand of gombeenism to it and turned it into something that was mostly disastrous.

That said, each case should be looked at seperately, and the bigger picture should be taken into consideration. There are many vested interests, in Dublin particularly, trying to have the whole thing undermined. The article above is a case in point. The only reason it gives for the move being a wrong one is that close contacts were lost. But it could equally be argued that the move broke apart some cosy relationships that were no help to running the Department.

MrLaurel

Mr Murphy said the organisation was promised at the time that Limerick was a popular destination

Mr Murphy is either a moron or he's full of crap. You would think the agency was being moved to a foreign place that no one had ever heard of. Did Mr Murphy not take the time to drive the 2 hours to Limerick before the move?

Also just following up on previous comments re decentralisation. If the move was confined to re-locating the large agencies to Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and perhaps Sligo, it would have worked. Moving the agencies to 50 small rural locations, that was just madness.

Amazotheamazing

MrLaurel wrote: »

Also just following up on previous comments re decentralisation. If the move was confined to re-locating the large agencies to Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and perhaps Sligo, it would have worked. Moving the agencies to 50 small rural locations, that was just madness.

It's the way FF operate though. Hard to think of the billions upon billions they wasted in the good times, before they bankrupted the country. Still, no doubt we'll re-elect O'Dea and his half-wit yes-men will continue without ever doubting themselves.

Kess73

MrLaurel wrote: »

Mr Murphy said the organisation was promised at the time that Limerick was a popular destination

Mr Murphy is either a moron or he's full of crap. You would think the agency was being moved to a foreign place that no one had ever heard of. Did Mr Murphy not take the time to drive the 2 hours to Limerick before the move?

Also just following up on previous comments re decentralisation. If the move was confined to re-locating the large agencies to Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and perhaps Sligo, it would have worked. Moving the agencies to 50 small rural locations, that was just madness.

Heard a much more detailed version of the man's interview over the weekend and I have to say I have some sympathy for the man.

When he says he was told Limerick was a popular destination, what was meant was that more agencies were spoken of as being moved to Limerick at the same time, including a number that dealt directly with the Irish Aid side of things.

But it turned out that the Irish Aid main offices were moved to Limerick, buit the support offices and centres were kept in Dublin or moved elsewhere in Ireland. As a result it would appear that meetings and what not that beforehand meant that workers and clients only had to travel a few miles to get between offices to do things that were part of their day to day or weekly duties, but now since the move they are split between the new main office in Limerick, the same old offices in Dublin, and possibly a few others that were moved elsewhere in Ireland.

Common sense should have made it obvious that if the main office was being moved to Limerick that all the support and connecting offices/centres would foillow suit in order to get maximum efficiency, but some genius thought it would be better to split up offices/centres that had people physically moving between them on a daily bases and place them in different parts of the country.

flutered

did peter power ex td have his office there as well.

Kess73

flutered wrote: »

did peter power ex td have his office there as well.

In the same building, yes.

Brennans Row

Kess73 wrote: »

Heard a much more detailed version of the man's interview over the weekend and I have to say I have some sympathy for the man.

Would love to hear that interview, is it online anywhere?

zulutango

flutered wrote: »

did peter power ex td have his office there as well.

Power was the Minister of State with responsibility for Irish Aid.

mgbgt1978

Kess73 wrote: »

In the same building, yes.

'fraid not Kess. He had his office further up Henry st., between the Shannon Arms and The Oriental Food Market.

I heard from one of the guys working in the Foreign Aid Office that even their heating system is controlled from some office in Dublin...apparently it is supposed to be automatic, but if there is a problem and they want to turn the heating up or down they have to phone some guy in dublin to make the adjustment.
So, even though the Foreign Aid staff were relocated even their temperature is still controlled from Dublin:D.

Kess73

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

'fraid not Kess. He had his office further up Henry st., between the Shannon Arms and The Oriental Food Market.

I heard from one of the guys working in the Foreign Aid Office that even their heating system is controlled from some office in Dublin...apparently it is supposed to be automatic, but if there is a problem and they want to turn the heating up or down they have to phone some guy in dublin to make the adjustment.
So, even though the Foreign Aid staff were relocated even their temperature is still controlled from Dublin:D.

Then he had two offices on Henry street, because he did have space of his own or use of it in the Irish aid building, so maybe the office you are talking about was his "TD" office, and the one in the Irish Aid building was to do with his role with them.

mgbgt1978

While he may have had the use of space in the Foreign aid building, his job was part of the Dept of Foreign Affairs and his ministerial office would have been located there.
It was his constituency office that was located beside the shannon arms.

ninty9er

The office of the Minister for Trade and Development is based in the Irish Aid building in Waterstone House, Henry Street, Limerick, however there is also an office at the Department of Foreign Affairs in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.

Peter Power had his constituency office across from the Irish Aid office next to CopperReed design.

The minister's civil servants work in the Irish Aid building, their own staff work in their constituency office.

I've been in the Irish Aid offices and the people there seem not to be bothered in the main; it's a pretty large operation there. Some of them were delighted to be able to get out of Dublin.

gaf1983

I met someone who works for the Department of Foreign Affairs a few months ago, we got talking about the Irish Aid move to Limerick, and they were telling me that it has added extra inefficiencies to the way they operate from a point of view of flights. A lot of the work Irish Aid does is done in cooperation with international agencies based in places like New York, Paris and Switzerland - when Irish Aid was in Dublin, this wasn't much of a problem because Dublin Airport serves all those places - a person could fly out to one of those places in the morning and wouldn't miss any work - now that they're in Limerick, Irish Aid still need to send people to meetings in those places, and because Shannon isn't connected to those airports, this involves taking a half day or even a day off work to get to Dublin Airport.

Just another inefficiency of the ill-thought out Fianna Fáil stroke that the whole decentralisation debacle was.

Brennans Row

Well Delta and United Airlines run daily flights to New York from Shannon. It also has U.S. preclearance facilities and a shorter journey time than from Dublin.

What I can’t get my head around is the fact that the Irish Aid has money to donate but has to chase UN officials around Europe / America as to where they can spend it. Should it not be the other way round?

The private sector in the Mid-West like Dell, Analog, Vistikon, Kostal, etc, etc has people flying in and out on business on a daily basis. Should they all pack-up and move to Dublin?

Brennans Row

MINISTER LOOKING AT RELOCATION OF IRISH AID OFFICES FROM LIMERICK (Live95fm)

Irish Aid Minister Joe Costello is looking at the possible relocation of staff from the offices in Limerick back to Dublin.

It follows a report which shows that travel costs for staff at the Henry Street offices in Limerick have soared to 170,000 euro as a result of having to travel to Dublin for meetings.

A full review into the costs has been ordered by the Minister.

Hans Zomer, director of Dochas, which is the umbrella orgnaisation for NGOs says it's only a matter of time before staff are moved...

Audio extract ... We have been opposed to relocation of Irish Aid to Limerick from the start.

Nothing to do with Limerick we have always felt that is a part of government, that is a policy making part of the department of Foreign Affairs and that needs to be based in the Capital.

We have met the minister on a number of occasions, we raised our concerns with him.

I know he is looking at, seeing what the options are for bringing large sections of Irish Aid back or maybe replacing some of the staff in Dublin and moving them to Limerick.

A great opportunity for our new Mayor Gerry McLoughlin to prove himself by convincing the minister that the best option for Irish Aid would be to move the rest of the Dublin staff to Limerick.

zulutango

so, the travel costs of the department staff have soared to 170,000 euro. Let's weigh that up against the economic benefit to Limerick City ...

I'd imagine that this cost is entirely justifiable if it helps get Limerick back on its feet. It would be a very narrow approach to make a decision based on the cost to the department alone.

ninty9er

zulutango wrote: »

so, the travel costs of the department staff have soared to 170,000 euro. Let's weigh that up against the economic benefit to Limerick City ...

I'd imagine that this cost is entirely justifiable if it helps get Limerick back on its feet. It would be a very narrow approach to make a decision based on the cost to the department alone.

No, the department has a budget to operate to, the sensible thing to do would be to spend 10k on a proper teleconferencing suite one off, or as someone else said, move the rest of the department to Limerick.

zulutango

ninty9er wrote: »

No, the department has a budget to operate to, the sensible thing to do would be to spend 10k on a proper teleconferencing suite one off, or as someone else said, move the rest of the department to Limerick.

While I agree that the 170k bill should be tackled through improved teleconferencing, etc., it is reasonable that a government spend more on running a department in an economically deprived area if the net result is increased economic activity, which would be the case in this situation.

phog

zulutango wrote: »

so, the travel costs of the department staff have soared to 170,000 euro. Let's weigh that up against the economic benefit to Limerick City ...

I'd imagine that this cost is entirely justifiable if it helps get Limerick back on its feet. It would be a very narrow approach to make a decision based on the cost to the department alone.

Tell them use the M7 Express bus, €10 each way!

pontia

why are we giving anything to overseas when irelands falling apart

liammur

Decentralisation was a joke and should never have been implemented. Why not just get companies to locate to the regions. We did have probably the worst government any country had in the last 50 years.

Brennans Row

liammur wrote: »

Decentralisation was a joke and should never have been implemented.

On the contrary, decentralisation has been very successful in Limerick so far.

Take the Collector General’s Division based at Sarsfield House and River House for example.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Limerick Civic Trust owes its origins to a disgruntled Dubliner who, while having a pint with me in 1980, expressed his horror at being transferred from Dublin to Limerick as part of the national decentralisation programme. Moving out of Dublin was not a very popular issue in those days, particularly for Dubliners who had grown up in the capital city. At that time Limerick was to be the host centre for most of the 1,200 civil servants in the Collector General's Department. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Source: Denis Leonard - Limerick Civic Trust.[/FONT]

Revenue's decentralisation programme began in 1991 with the Accountant General's Branch move to Ennis.
The following year, sections of Customs & Residence Division relocated to Nenagh.
The major move of the Collector-General's Division to Sarsfield House, Limerick, commenced on a phased basis.
Intense planning was required to ensure that each move caused minimum disruption to customers and the Exchequer.
Decentralisation attracted people from other civil service areas to Revenue.
Training programmes were arranged to enable them carry out their new duties effectively.
It is a credit to all concerned that the decentralisation programmes were successfully completed without any disruption to our services.
Satisfaction at a task well done was tinged with sadness at the untimely death of Michael Barrett, former Collector-General, who had worked tirelessly on the project.

Source: Revenue Commissioners

phog

liammur wrote: »

Decentralisation was a joke and should never have been implemented. Why not just get companies to locate to the regions. We did have probably the worst government any country had in the last 50 years.

I always thought the concept was a great idea but as with most things in this country the unions and the parish pump politics got involved and we ended up with a huge mess.

liammur

phog wrote: »

I always thought the concept was a great idea but as with most things in this country the unions and the parish pump politics got involved and we ended up with a huge mess.

That's it summed up.
The other poster is gone off on a wild tangent, we're talking about decentralisation under McCreevy's plan. No thought put it into whatsoever.

Brennans Row

liammur wrote: »

. . . The other poster is gone off on a wild tangent, we're talking about decentralisation under McCreevy's plan. . .

Apologies, if my comparison of the Irish Aid with the successful decentralisation of the Revenue Commissioners to Limerick was a bit too wild off tangent for you.

Is it not blatant enough to see, that it’s the Dublin based civil servants and their allies that are doing their devil best to hinder any decentralisation programme, past or present?

liammur

Brennans Row wrote: »

Apologies, if my comparison of the Irish Aid with the successful decentralisation of the Revenue Commissioners to Limerick was a bit too wild off tangent for you.

Is it not blatant enough to see, that it’s the Dublin based civil servants and their allies that are doing their devil best to hinder any decentralisation programme, past or present?

Decentralisation to places like Killorgin was never going to work. And it was very costly. People simply didn't want to go to places like Donegal for instance. There was no thought at all behind it. Moving to cities like Limerick/Cork etc should not have been such a problem.

I'd much prefer to see companies brought into regions. Decentralisation was like, we can't get you companies, but we'll bring in you in this instead.

InsiderJo

Brennan has it spot on, there are vested interests involved here, a minority of staff with affinities to Dublin want to see the office fail and revert to Dublin.

Management who were against the idea from the word go allowed staff to gradually move back to Dublin, despite some of them getting promoted on condition that they moved to Limerick.

Majority of the staff want to stay in Limerick, some bought houses on the basis that they were in Limerick to stay and moved their families there 5 years ago.

The Government were confident of the decision and signed a twenty year lease on the building on Henry street.

But Dublin centric minority are pushing to go back!

phog

liammur wrote: »

Decentralisation to places like Killorgin was never going to work. And it was very costly. People simply didn't want to go to places like Donegal for instance. There was no thought at all behind it. Moving to cities like Limerick/Cork etc should not have been such a problem.

I'd much prefer to see companies brought into regions. Decentralisation was like, we can't get you companies, but we'll bring in you in this instead.

We need both, imho, what the city centre needs is footfall and the easiest way to increase footfall is office jobs, not production jobs out in industrial estates. While any job in the region will help the city, daily footfall from people working in the city centre is required. Those jobs brought to the city with decentralisation cannot be lost.

fi314

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-aid-travel-costs-rise-by-15pc-29474549.html

Seems numbers in Limerick dwindling

Brennans Row

Irish Aid office and 90 jobs staying put in Limerick: Costello

Staff numbers may have reduced by around a third since it opened in 2009 but the Irish Aid office on Henry Street has a secure future for now, according to Minister of State for Trade and Development Joe Costello.

My ministry is now the Ministry of Trade and Development. The trade side of that is all in Dublin and the development side is divided between Limerick and Dublin. There’s a 2:1 ratio. There’s about 86 people based down here and less than 50 in Dublin in the core department. So most of the operation is here in Limerick and we have no plans to change it during the lifetime of the current government. Maybe that puts it to rest,” Minister Costello said. (Limerick Leader)

We will have to wait and see until after the next general election. The lease on the buiding runs until 2028.

fi314

Yes long term lease but Social welfare staff are to move into building before end of Summer.