In the Fianna Fáil local government manifesto, which was launched last week, the Taoiseach's first commitment is to "deliver for the regions through decentralisation of Government and continued investment in local services". This is Fianna Fáil's big promise to the electorate in the lead-up to the elections on 11 June. However, the decentralisation plan unveiled by the Minister for Finance last December has been ill-thought out and ill-planned. On what basis was it decided to proceed with the announcement to decentralise 10,000 posts to various locations throughout the jurisdiction without consultation with any of the civil servants involved? Will the Minister explain how this is still being described as a voluntary scheme?

What is the Government's response to the fact that 95% of SIPTU members in the Civil Service who were surveyed since the budget do not wish to leave Dublin? Only 69 out of 503 respondents are interested in taking up the proposed 250 positions in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in Carlow. The general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union has said the programme will be impossible to implement before the end of 2006. Civil servants from the Combat Poverty Agency, the smallest decentralisation proposed for Monaghan and whose staff I have met on a number of occasions since last December, state that there is no prospect of the agency being moved to Monaghan.

Why not? It is going to a beautiful part of the country.

Is Deputy Ó Caoláin supporting them in that?

Only 500 of the 2,500 staff in the Department of Social and Family Affairs in Dublin are willing to move to the country.

The Deputy's time is concluded.

Is the Minister aware of the huge concern among more than 800 information technology staff and 500 other staff in the Department of Health and Children who have not yet been given an indication of where it is proposed to relocate them? They are at an even greater disadvantage than those who have had their new location already signalled because all they know is that it is proposed to decentralise them but they have no information regarding that, with all the uncertainty that entails.

In an article in the December edition of Inside Government,——

The Deputy should give way to the Minister.

The Deputy does not believe in abiding by the rules.

——the Minister for Finance indicated that he had instructed the implementation committee to report to Government by March on those 1,350 workers. Has the implementation body reported to Government and Cabinet and has a decision been made regarding the future of those workers?

Two minutes are allowed for the submission of a question. Three and a half minutes is not appropriate.

I would have expected Deputy Ó Caoláin to welcome the Combat Poverty Agency to Monaghan, an Objective One area, and that he would have been prepared to assist and encourage such a development in his constituency rather than pointing to the difficulties and obstacles and suggesting ways in which it cannot work.

We have had a number of decentralisation programmes. They have given a substantial economic boost to the towns to which sections of the public service have been relocated. The individuals concerned have played significant roles in the cultural, economic and sporting life of these areas. That will happen again. In some cases it will take time to tease out problems. Decentralisation will be done on a voluntary basis with as much co-operation as possible. It will work. It has worked before.

We have the most centralised system of almost any small country in the world.

That is true.

It is important to spread resources, not merely with regard to personnel but also with regard to the delivery of services.

The Minister should answer the question.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs, which deals on a day to day basis with almost 1 million clients, is one of the most decentralised Departments of Government. This would never have happened if Opposition Deputies had had their way.

Deputy Ó Caoláin will be at the official opening.

I will welcome the Combat Poverty Agency to Monaghan, if it is to happen. The Minister has not answered the question because he is not prepared to face up to the assertion that he and his colleagues failed to address this proposal properly before December 2003.

Deputy Ó Caoláin is a big man to pre-negotiate.

The Government has not consulted or planned. The mask has slipped and we have another typical Fianna Fáil pre-election promise.

Is the Minister aware that the Government's decentralisation committee has acknowledged that thousands of civil servants will be transferred to new jobs but that this will involve the effective exclusion of many civil servants from promotional opportunities? The Government should heed those words carefully.

That is true.

Civil servants are being told that if they do not move, they will not get the same promotional opportunity. That is not a voluntary scheme. It is threatening, objectionable and not acceptable.

The Deputy has no vision.

The Minister should take no solace from the remarks of the general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union who has stated that the move of the Equality Authority of Ireland and the Equality Tribunal to the Minister's home town of Roscrea — I wish Roscrea and Tipperary well in this regard — had more to do with his party's political interest in that area and the upcoming elections on 11 June. The Minister has failed, so far, to answer this accusation.

I hope my party will always take an interest in these areas and help them in every way we can.

The critical mass which will evolve from this major decentralisation programme, combined with programmes which have already taken place and the fact that a number of towns with public servants in them will be close together, will afford new opportunities for promotion which did not exist in previous decentralisation programmes. Negotiations on all these matters will take place.

The Government's decentralisation committee has stated the contrary.

These problems are opportunities to be solved in the wider national interest.