A new policy to transfer 10,000 semi-state and government employees from Dublin is likely to meet with significant trade union resistance.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, announced in his Budget speech the Government's intention to implement a "radical" round of decentralising state jobs from Dublin to various provincial locations.
In a post-Budget media briefing, Mr McCreevy said he believed that the new policy would involve "10,000 people in total".
He said the Government wanted "to transfer the maximum possible number of public service jobs from Dublin".
Since 1987, successive governments have approved the decentralisation of 4,000 civil service jobs from Dublin. This policy has involved the partial transfer of departmental activities to provincial locations.
Some divisions of the Revenue Commissioners have been moved to Limerick, while a section of the Central Statistics Office was moved from Dublin to Cork.
A Government spokesman last night confirmed the objective of the new policy would be "to move whole agencies and departments lock, stock and barrel" out of the capital.
The Government could not leave job creation in provincial centres to the private sector alone if it was serious about regional development, the spokesman added.
The Office of Public Works is likely to have overall responsibility for overseeing the new decentralisation policy in terms of locating sites for new offices. The Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, last night confirmed that the new policy would target major provincial towns in preference to cities such as Cork, Limerick and Galway. He said his office had already received submissions from major towns around the country and he hoped to move on the new policy "reasonably quickly".
The Labour Party spokesman on regional development, Mr Willie Penrose, last night said his party was "very much in favour of the new policy". He said civil servants should be assisted with relocation allowances and that it was "far cheaper to live in towns like Mullingar than in a city like Dublin".
However, the initial trade union reaction last night was one of caution. SIPTU economist, Mr Paul Sweeney said any transfer from Dublin would have to be the subject of negotiation and agreement with the civil servants concerned. He said that without negotiation, the Government risked breaching the terms of Partnership 2000.
Mr Sweeney said any attempt to formulate a policy based on "moving agencies to some minister's constituency for political opportunism would not be condoned". He said any civil servants involved in decentralisation would have to be compensated for the relocation involved.
Earlier this year, the Government approved the decentralisation of the Legal Aid Board from Dublin to Cahirciveen, Co Kerry.
A senior official at the Department of Finance is expected to prepare a list of possible agencies for inclusion in the new round of decentralisation. An announcement of agencies to be included and their new locations is expected by the middle of next year.