A number of towns are to target civil servants directly with a view to attracting them during the Government's decentralisation programme.
Castlebar in Co Mayo, Killarney in Co Kerry, Portlaoise in Co Laois and Letterkenny in Co Donegal have all arranged feature spreads in the Public Sector Times, which is distributed to around 10,000 civil servants each month.
Castlebar Chamber of Commerce president, Mr Pat Murray, explained that the de- centralisation move was too good an opportunity to miss for the town.
Despite the fact that Castlebar lost out in the first decentralisation round of 10,000 civil servants announced in the 2004 budget, he sees no reason why the town cannot gain in the long-term.
In Mayo, the towns of Claremorris and Knock have been earmarked for 150 civil servants.
However, Mr Murray believes that Castlebar, approximately 20 miles away, is the perfect place for people to live.
He said the plan to promote the town for decentralisation was "a new approach to attracting our own indigenous people, rather than looking abroad all the time."
Interest in the feature, due to be published in the August edition of the Public Sector Times, has been so intense from businesses in Castlebar that the planned four-page spread has now been increased to accommodate advertisements.
Ms Helen Dolan, project manager with the chamber, said that one of the attractions of Castlebar is that there are other industries in the town with job vacancies, which means that not only the public servants who relocate there can get jobs, but their spouses can also find work.
She said there might be perceptions out there that Castlebar does not have a third-level college when in fact the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology is based there.
"This is of huge significance here as 80 per cent of civil servants go to third-level and 20 per cent of those go on to take a master's degree.
"Third-level is also a key issue in regard to the education of children as the fear of the family unit being broken up is removed by the existence of this college in Castlebar."