What is the Government's response to the strike today by those FÁS staff who it is proposed to forcibly relocate to the constituency of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, and the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon? Is the Taoiseach concerned? Does he recognise the mounting concern about the decentralisation programme announced by the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy?

There is widespread concern, including on the Fianna Fáil backbenches. I welcome the support for the position I have repeatedly expressed in this House from so many Fianna Fáil Deputies. I am sure the Taoiseach read about it at the weekend. Perfectly sensible statements were made by Fianna Fáil Members. Such Members are interested in genuine regional balance and are genuinely interested in a decentralisation programme that is thought out, planned and negotiated. They are genuinely concerned about the damage that will be done to the coherence of governance as a result of going ahead with what was a blatant political stroke.

Can the Taoiseach tell the House of a single thing he has done to support his own spatial strategy? Will he explain to the House how the choice of the 53 centres, which were plucked according to the exigencies and requirements of local constituencies, supports the spatial strategy? Does he acknowledge he cannot proceed with the transfer of FÁS staff for the obvious reasons and arguments made outside this House?

The Deputy's time has concluded.

What does the Taoiseach have to say to the woman who appeared on television last night? Her spouse is in different employment in Dublin and her children are in education. She explained she does not know whether she has a job or what she will do. Can the Taoiseach tell her what she will do? If this applies in the case of FÁS and the probation service, why does it not apply to the other 34 specialised agencies?

If the Fianna Fáil backbenchers have made such comments publically, one can only assume they have told the Taoiseach privately and at parliamentary party meetings that they have the deepest concern regarding the Taoiseach pushing ahead with what was a calculated political stroke by the former Minister for Finance; that it is incapable of implementation, is damaging to joined-up Government, is uprooting families and is simply unworkable and that it is time to return to the drawing board to come up with a plan capable of implementation and capable of getting the support of those elements of the civil and public service which can easily transfer within the country.

Bring back Mr. McCreevy.

FÁS is due to locate to Birr around Easter in 2009 under the decentralisation programme. I understand that the current dispute has arisen because FÁS, in the absence of an agreement with the unions, has proposed that all promotions in the head office would be conditional on candidates being willing to decentralise.

Agreement has been vetoed by the Department of Finance.

I understand that SIPTU contends that this breaches existing contracts of employment. The matter was referred to the Labour Court which made a recommendation last February. The court considered the written and oral submissions by the parties and noted the terms of the company-union industrial relations procedure agreement and said that it was in the opinion of FÁS that it was in breach of the consultation procedures provided for in that agreement. It made no ruling on the substantive issue of the relocation clause. Instead it recommended that the matter be referred back to the appropriate central body, at which level the issue should be teased out with a view to arriving at an agreed long-term solution in consultation with the parties involved.

Discussions have been held on three occasions under the Labour Relations Commission to see if progress can be made. The last of these meetings concluded this morning. The differences remain between the parties and are being addressed through ongoing dialogue. It would not be helpful at this point for me to get into the details of the elements of the negotiations between FÁS management and trade unions. Naturally I support using the established consultation and dialogue mechanisms and I hope these discussions lead to a resolution.

On the general points on the other issues, as I have said previously, all these issues must be done through negotiation. Decentralisation is a voluntary programme and it must be done by negotiation. That is the best way of it working through. Some of these programmes have been well advanced. Other ones are a considerable distance behind because there are industrial relations difficulties. As they are different in each case, it is not possible to give a generalised view. Some people have made progress and are moving quickly. With others the uptake is very low and there is very little action.

The Taoiseach has described the problem. I know what the problem is. I am asking him what the solution is. He is going on like the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Deputy O'Donoghue, who believes that Brian Kennedy won the Eurovision Song Contest. This is not happening. Last night the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment claimed that there were more than 10,000 applicants. He did not say, however, that the majority of the applicants are people outside Dublin who want to transfer between various provincial towns and villages.

He got that from the Taoiseach on "The Tubridy Show". He said that——

Allow Deputy Rabbitte without interruption. It is Deputy Rabbitte's question and he does not need any help from Deputy Paul McGrath.

I watched "The Tubridy Show" with fascination. Old friends are best. What does the Taoiseach have to say to the FÁS staff, of which only a small fraction is prepared to transfer? What is it about the probation and welfare service that makes any of the specialised agencies different? Does the Taoiseach acknowledge the finding of the Farrell Grant Sparks report that showed that the cost of replacing staff ranged between €51 million and €65 million? Is it not true that serious damage will be done to the way Government does its business in this small country, with senior civil servants criss-crossing the country merely because it is convenient today to locate the headquarters of a Department to where today's Minister happens to live? We know this will not last for very much longer. Does it mean that we change the headquarters of a Department every time the Minister changes?

It is not working and I am sure the Taoiseach will get someone to facilitate another interview with him so that he can back down further than he did the last time. As far as I can see, the last climbdown only extended to a tacit admission that the agencies cannot be transferred and that he is pretending that while the rest of it is intact, it will take a longer period. He very well knows that, as currently planned, it is not workable, is damaging to the coherence of Government and is uprooting families.

The Taoiseach told the House to read what Robert Putnam wrote and said that he is very concerned about uprooting communities. He is uprooting families in these circumstances who have put down roots in this city, have children in education, have spouses in other employments — often in the private sector — and he is proposing that they be scattered like Smarties to 53 different centres. That is not decentralisation; it is merely dispersal of civil servants for blatant political purposes.

I have said this so many times to the Deputy, but I will say it again. The last round of decentralisation was to approximately 20 locations. None of those has changed. The staff moved to those locations, are still there and have all worked very successfully there. It took longer than was envisaged in the early 1990s when we started the process, but they are in those locations, are working and are effective. I said to the Deputy last week, I said this time last year and I said in interviews last June and July — it is on the record — that we were never going to move 10,600 people in a short period and have it done by Christmas. That was going to be impossible, as I said last year and again recently.

Approximately half those people are already outside Dublin and trying to move to locations nearer their existing homes. The other half are mainly — although not all — young people who want to get out of Dublin. It is approximately 5,000 outside Dublin and 5,000 in Dublin. We already have good examples such as the Marine Institute, whose launch I will attend in one or two weeks' time. It moved to Galway.

The Marine Institute is a new institute.

Only two people did not move.

I am waiting for a few.

It is a new institute.

Allow the Taoiseach speak without interruption.

More than 100 people moved and only two did not. That institute is launching successfully in Galway. As I have said, there are problems with the agencies because there is not transferability between them. Some of the staff contend that there should be at lower levels but that arrangement does not exist at present. In the short term, approximately 2,500 civil servants can be moved. It will take a longer period to manage the situation in a way that does not affect the work relationship of any of the services to move to other locations. That has been worked with the Department. The agencies will be a more complex issue because, obviously, if staff do not want to work in an agency, there is a difficulty. That is true in the case of FÁS.

Regarding FÁS, the industrial relations machinery must be used to see if a resolution can be found. It is right for the management and unions to see if they can do this within the parameters set down by the Department of Finance which have been well tested through the movement of people to locations such as Letterkenny, Sligo, Limerick, Tipperary and Killarney over the years. It is not new or that extraordinary.

The figures I have seen show that 2,500 civil servants will move in the period up to 2008. That in no way exaggerates the kinds of figures that moved back in the mid-1990s when there were at least those kinds of figures. I know Deputy Rabbitte previously referred to it as an enormous switch to the whole system, but it is not. Those kinds of numbers moved on previous occasions. Regardless of which Ministers were in place, successive Governments moved on and nobody changed them. Nobody wanted to move and nobody has complained about the service to the public. A process exists and it should be followed.