The Government's current Public Service Decentralisation Programme will involve the transfer of complete Departments, including their Ministers and senior management to provincial locations. A total of eight Departments and the Office of Public Works are moving their headquarters from Dublin to provincial locations, leaving seven Departments with their headquarters in Dublin.

The first Department to relocate in its entirety to outside of Dublin will be the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism which will move to Killarney by end 2008.

Over 2,200 posts have been relocated to date. Decentralising organisations have now established a presence in 34 locations around the country. Property or sites have been acquired or are well advanced in a total of 38 locations. In addition, suitable advance or temporary accommodation has been secured in over 20 locations to facilitate the early phasing of the transfer of business units. Over 11,000 civil and public servants have applied on the CAF to decentralise. In addition to the 2,200 posts moved, an additional 1,200 civil service staff have been assigned to decentralising posts and are being trained in their new role in advance of their move as soon as accommodation becomes available.

Taking account of both moves and assignments, almost 50% of the civil service general service posts are filled by staff with a commitment to decentralise. The comparable figure for the civil service professional & technical staff is 25%. The position in relation to the State Agencies is currently being examined by the Decentralisation Implementation Group (DIG) who will present a Report to Government July 2008.

To meet current expenditure pressures, the Government announced on the 8th of July 2008 that it has decided a number of measures will be taken including one concerning the Decentralisation Programme.

In the light of the current Exchequer position, further expenditure for the acquisition of accommodation for decentralisation will await detailed consideration of the aforementioned Report from the Decentralisation Implementation Group along with a Report from the sub-group of Secretaries General.

9th of July 2008