Decentralisation

a friend of mine worked for a company in dublin, he was told that the company had to move to the west of ireland ,he had a choice ,move to where his job was or quit his job,luckily he was already thinking about leaving and left for a new job near his home but this is the reality for everyone in private sector,why should the public sector be shielding from the new economic reality? they already have many advantages over similarly qualified private sector people such as better pay,flexible working hours,extra maternity leave, great pensions, job for life etc the fact that dublin is bursting at the seams and the rest of the country is struggling economical and that things will only gets worse indicates that it is vital for the future of our country that decentralisation occurs. tell the civil servants that their jobs are moving to cork galway waterford or whereever and of they dont like it they can transfer to a job in dublin if it is available. also the private sector should be encouraged to relocate outside of dublin say with ten years zero tax rate to locate in donegal and other west of ireland locations other wise dublin is gonna come to a standstill with house prices going even higher,traffic getting even worse and the rest of the country will suffer too.

i agree the pds /ff are using decrentralisation to garner votes thats why i think an indeppendent body shud decide where the decentralised locations are.
as to civil servants costing less outside dublin, they would cost less as property for offices is cheaper outsde dublin and the reduced congestion in dublin would mean less cost to economy.

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

as to civil servants costing less outside dublin, they would cost less as property for offices is cheaper outsde dublin

Not by much & by Tom Parlon's estimates, are certainly not by anything near the cost of the scheme. It would take 20 years for the costs to be covered & that's assuming he's right. The full cost of the PPPs to build the new offices is unknown, don't be surprised if costs eventually exceed those of staying in Dublin.

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

and the reduced congestion in dublin would mean less cost to economy.

You've fallen victim to 'spin'. There's never been any evidence put forward to support this bogus claim. Traffic congestion will increase not decrease:

If & when the Dublin offices are vacated, the new tenants will fill them at higher densities than the Civil Service. The result will be more commuters to these offices, not less. Not only that, but some Dubliners will try to commute from, say, Rathfarnham to Drogheda, in order to preserve their promotion prospects. So, where before they used public transport to reach the city centre, now, they'll be driving across the city.

I have heard a few Civil Servants refer to themsleves as professionals in the past - having worked in the private sector and now in the Civil Service I can confirm the majority are not professionals. A professional is someone who must not only gain strictly controled (and challenging) qualifications in their area of expertise, but they must work in specialised areas of their field before they can become qualified....

A lot of jobs in the Civil Service are transferable, most people are replaceable - its a fact.

Everyone will agree the FF/PD bandwagon is trying to get what they can politically, from the decentralisation.

However, the fact remains that I have listened to people complain for years about the centralised nature of the Irish economy and society.
Jobs in Dublin
Universities in Dublin
Opportunities in Dublin

It is very hard for the Irish government to "sell" rural areas to the private sector when they haven't committed significant jobs to these areas themselves. It is necessary to make this move for the long term social and cultural benefits it would give not only Dublin, but the rural areas.

The financial arguement of €2bn/€3bn is all well and good - over how many years? You can use a single figured sound bite such as that, but over 10 years (which will probably make it €4bn) - is not as large a cost per annum.

That would work out at €400 million per annum - if the full 10,000 decentralse - they won't. Probably only half that amount will move (at best). €400 m down to €200 m, then you consoder the more costly plans will be scraped in the 10,000 to 5,000 cut. So €150m per annum is looking realistic.

The knock on benefits to the rural regions around the country will be for decades and generations. There will be a knock on input to local economies, with spin off jobs and money into local industries (in the short and long term).
How much tax payer money in tax incentives, free buildings etc. is used to get multinationals to locate in rural areas? These companies can and will pull out at any minute and leave local economies in a mini crisis. With civil service departments this investment of governement money will be a safe use of tax payers money in the medium and long term compared with the multinational option.

To answer the point about this being a waste of money, with only a few people benefitting.
If you take into account -
Current Civil Servants
Spouses of Civil Servants
People hoping to join the Civil Service (possible their spouses)
The family of Civil Servants who may need them to be local in years to come
The rural economies with 40 families that may gain 5 or 6 more families because of this.
The rural sporting and cultural communities that will see more members and participants.
Just to name a few of the obvious benefits

Now you are looking at tens of thousands of people in this country that will directly and indirectly benefit from the decentralisation programme - immediatley. The decentralisation programme is seen as being more of a long term benefit to areas (which it is) - yet there are obvious short term gains also.....

So there are still a few diehards.

I think the question of staff being messed around if they have applied for jobs in the expectation of decentralisation needs to be seen in the real world context. Chucking someone in Dublin out of their job simply to give the same job to a new entrant in a regional location cannot be defended on the superficial reason that the potential new entrant is being messed around. In fairness, the Ordanance Survey Cartographer looking forward to his new life as a Probation Officer in Navan probably has a greater claim to that complaint.

The question of regional development has already been well dealt with, so it’s a little surprising to see some people still hankering for it. eirgrod makes a valid point when he points out that, in practice, the programme doesn't acutally involve many people moving residence. The decentralisation plan is simply a farce at many levels.

For what its worth, the bulk of well paid public service jobs are in the Garda, teaching and the health services and are actually decentralised of their nature. Only about a tenth of public sector jobs are in central government and, according to the CSO, they are not the best paid. So there are already plenty of opportunities in the regions for people seeking state employment. There is no knock on boom from consumer expenditure in a small open economy like Ireland (which equally means the question of the capital losing ten thousand salaries is equally irrelevant.)

If there’s one point the diehards need to take away, it’s the potential use to which these resources could be put. A figure of €3 billion is being floated for the first phase of decentralisation. Half that amount could built the Dublin Rail Interconnector, which would vastly increase rail capacity on Northside DART, Drogheda, Navan, Mullingar and Maynooth services. This would do far more to alleviate congestion that moving a few thousand civil servants hither and dither.

The simple fact is that relieving congestion and promoting regional development by the proposed decentralisation is like trying to heat a house by lighting a cigar with a wad of banknotes.

delboy159 wrote:

A lot of jobs in the Civil Service are transferable, most people are replaceable - its a fact.

Yes indeed: the big consultancies are waiting in the wings to take over all the IT jobs and once they've achieved software lock-in, the rates will go up.

Here’s another example of the kind of rigidity decentralisation brings to the system. We should be getting the benefit of needing fewer staff processing farming grants because of simplified EU rules. Instead, we end up with a block of staff on the payroll but doing nothing as their redeployment to another area is problematic on both practical and political grounds. The situation is dragging on, as I can remember this particular case being raised in the local press months ago. It is not an unique case – staff were similarly left on the payroll in Ballina, but with no work, when housing grants were abolished.

The clear conclusion is that splitting up central government departments makes little sense, and makes for poor value for money. This kind of case needs to be highlighted, particularly when people express the superficial view that past decentralisations are ‘successful’. Past decentralisations are causing additional costs, meaning money that could be better spent is wasted.

http://www.mayonews.ie/current/news.tmpl$showpage?value1=3342858442192203
TWENTY-nine years after the Department of Agriculture established a base in Davitt House, Castlebar, activity at the centre will be drastically reduced from Thursday next when the main body of work carried out in Castlebar will be moved to Portlaoise. The switch from Castlebar to the midlands is a follow-on from the policy of decentralisation introduced by the former Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevey, a policy now being implemented by Minister for State at the Department of Finance, Tom Parlon.

The move has not met with universal acclaim among the staff and one employee, who has worked there for 25 years, told The Mayo News that the staff there feel ‘sold-out and demoralised’. “We don’t want to move to Portlaoise, we’re all very happy here and we’re settled in Mayo with our families. All we want to do is work, but after Thursday there’ll be very little for us to do here. We want to work and we want to work for the Department of Agriculture because that’s what we’re trained to do, but we can’t. There are people here who were specially recruited in 1976 and now they’re expected to up and go to Portlaoise,” he said.

Staff members who turned down the switch to Portlaoise were offered alternative places on the Garda PULSE system, while last week an offer of a switch to Driving Test Centres in Connacht was also proposed. However, out of the 100 or so staff employed by the Department of Agriculture in Davitt House, just 20 opted to take up the PULSE option. “PULSE doesn’t suit everyone and not too many took up the option. It’s shift-based work while the situation with the Driving Test Centres is that work is guaranteed for only 18 months,” he said.

Mayo Fine Gael Deputy, Michael Ring described the loss of the jobs to Portlaoise as a victory for the Tom Parlon, Minister for State at the Department of Finance with responsibility for the process of decentralisation. “Tom Parlon is responsible for those jobs going out of Castlebar. He has won in this case and Castlebar has lost. Nearly 100 jobs are being lost directly but an awful lot more are affected because so many families are involved. …..

http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=28390
100 staff at Davitt House in Castlebar will face temporary unemployment with a closure of the Department of Agriculture offices due at the end of this week. …. the Department admitted that none of the staff based in Castlebar wished to transfer full time to the SFP unit in Portlaoise and jobs will not be provided immediately. “People are being redeployed on an ongoing basis in that 22 staff will be going to the Garda Information Services Centre, Being civil servants the staff will be paid.”
….
“This is a political decision, it’s not decentralisation. We now have a situation where our qualified Agriculture staff are being redeployed to totally unrelated areas such as PULSE or as the Minister proposed last week to driver testing,” said Deputy Ring before noting his disgust at the Fianna Fáil representatives in Mayo for allowing the closure. “I am disgusted that Fianna Fáil has allowed this to happen. I am calling on Fianna Fáil to explain to the people of Mayo why they are allowing this to happen. Shame on the Fianna Fáil elected representatives in the County. This is a win for Tom Parlon and the P.D.’s.”

sunday times

FAS, Ireland’s training agency, is paying €275,000 an acre for the site of its new headquarters in Birr, Co Offaly, even though only a fraction of its Dublin staff have agreed to move there.
The purchase of the land will be finalised by the end of this month, although opposition parties say the asking price is “excessive and questionable”.



The deal is more expensive than the controversial €200,000 per acre purchase of a site in Thornton, in north Dublin, that will house a new prison complex. and nearly double the €140,000 per acre estimate supplied by estate agents to Fas when the agency first considered buying the land over a year ago.

Fas said yesterday that it was ready to close on the deal to buy the 5.6 acre site, near the Tullamore Road in Birr, for more than €1.5m. A spokesman said it was “happy” with the move.

The purchase is bound to add to growing criticism of the government’s decentralisation project, which is suffering from a lack of civil service enthusiasm. The Labour Party says the government is paying too much for sites and buildings for decentralised departments.

Joan Burton, its finance spokesman, said: “Prices are soaring in the areas where the state is decentralising and the taxpayer is paying to facilitate a plan that civil servants are rejecting. In the chosen areas, businesses and home buyers are seeing prices soar.” She says the government should come up with a more economically viable plan. Richard Bruton, Fine Gael’s finance spokesman, said his main concern was that once the government had finished paying for sites and buildings, nobody would want to move in to them.

“Going on the response the government’s decentralisation plan has received so far, these new buildings are going to be close to empty,” he said.

Just 10% of targeted civil servants have agreed to leave their Dublin offices and retain their existing posts. Out of 7,200 civil servants due to move, just 3,740 have agreed to be relocated, mostly to different departments which will involve extensive retraining.

Fas insists that the purchase represents “value for the taxpayer”. The organisation said: “All negotiations were carried out by a highly professional firm and we were guided by them at all times. The process of buying the site was protracted in order to ensure that it met all our requirements. The deal has received the backing of both the Office of Public Works and the Department of Finance.”

Fas handled the purchase itself, but in all other decentralisation cases the OPW is overseeing the purchase of land and buildings. The OPW said the Fas deal “really wasn’t an OPW decision. They are paddling their own canoe on this one”, it said.

The purchase of the Birr site, currently owned by Respond!, an affordable housing charity with company status, had been delayed over concerns relating to price. It was valued at €140,000 per acre, but Hamilton Osborne King, the agents involved, described this as “a desktop estimate”.

David O’Neill, an associate with HOK, said: “When the original estimate was made, it was based on incomplete information.” There were concerns in Fas when the price was increased. The agency’s management questioned the purchase once criticisms over the Thornton site purchase surfaced. “There were further discussions around this time, but a decision was taken that the deal was good,” O’Neill said.

About 400 Fas staff are due to go to Birr under the government’s €900m decentralisation plan but only 101 employees have indicated that they will move to the new location.

Of these, only about 50 are existing staff, with the rest of the applications coming from people who want to switch from other civil service and semi-state departments.

Earlier this year the OPW had to defend the purchase of other land and buildings. Labour claimed the state was paying out an average of €430,000 per acre on the basis that €35.7m had been paid for 20 sites around the country. These included sites in expensive areas such as Limerick city and Killarney, where the state paid €4.3m. In Newcastle West, it paid €400,000 to Limerick county council for a half-acre site for the Revenue Commissioners. Other purchases were much cheaper than the Birr acquisition. In Portlaoise a nine-acre site was bought from the IDA for the new headquarters for the department of agriculture at a cost of €1.1m. In Longford a six-acre site for the Irish Prison Service cost in the region of €70,000 per acre.

The OPW said comparisons with the cost of the Thornton site were not valid as this was agricultural land. Where possible it is buying sites and buildings from the state at prices cheaper than those being sought by private sellers.

The OPW says it is also selling land and buildings in Dublin to raise money for the state and insists that the cost of decentralisation will be earned back in savings in years to come.

pete wrote:

Extract from a document circulated by the PSEU which I'd imagine will be of interest to those wishing to stay in Dublin:

Strangely, the proposal is just to list a load of departments and locations but with no indication of what types of jobs might be on offer. I can see the Dublin IT staff being a bit perplexed in trying to figure out where they might be able to continue their speciality.

This from yesterday's 'Sunday Tribune':

Finance admits need to replace IT staff who refuse to budge
by Martin Frawley

THE Department of Finance has admitted that it will have to hire hundreds of IT consultants costing millions of euro to cover the work of its own civil servants who do not want to move out of Dublin under the Government's decentralisation plan.

Under the latest blow to hit the Government's plan to move civil servants out of Dublin to over 50 locations around the country, Finance Minister Brian Cowen is also faced with the prospect of paying IT staff `on the double'.

Those who opt to remain in Dublin will still have to be paid even though they may not be engaged in IT work while their replacements outside Dublin will also have to paid for doing the actual work, possibly at a higher contract rate.

As part of the Government plan to move 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin, it has earmarked almost 900 key IT staff from Revenue, Social and Family Affairs and Agriculture to move to Portlaoise, Kildare and Drogheda.

But so far, just 400 staff have volunteered to make the move and Finance fear that many of those do not have the requisite IT skills. Revenue in particular has already warned that it simply cannot afford any disruption to its IT operations during the move.

Finance told the public service unions last week they they were prepared to offer promotions in bid to lure IT specialists to take up the jobs outside Dublin.

But if there were still shortfalls, said Finance, each affected departments could "go to the market to identify and employ external experts and contractors/consultants as stop-gap measures until sufficient number of internal staff with requisite knowledge and experience are in place".

But the PSEU public service union executives have told Finance that they will strongly resist any open recruitment of IT consultants as it would displace existing IT civil servants who will be surplus to requirements in Dublin. 7