Senior civil servants are set to call on the Government to suspend its decentralisation programme pending a published assessment of the project.
A motion expressing "serious concerns" about the programme and urging its suspension is to be debated at next month's annual conference of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants.
Decentralisation will be the dominant issue at the conference and is the subject of more than half the motions tabled for debate.
One motion, from the union's justice, equality and law reform branch, claims the programme has resulted in the Civil Service being "compromised for electoral purposes".
Other motions call for early retirement packages to be made available to senior civil servants affected by the project.
The AHCPS represents senior civil servants and managers in both the commercial and non-commercial State sector. Interest in decentralisation is low among staff in the grades concerned.
The Government plans to relocate in excess of 10,000 Dublin-based civil and public servants to more than 50 locations around the State.
AHCPS general secretary Seán Ó Riordáin said the programme had created "major problems" for staff in four areas which the Government needed to address.
The areas concerned were management grades, information technology, professional and technical posts, and State agencies.
The union's executive, in a motion tabled for the conference on May 5th, says there are "substantial shortfalls" in Dublin-based staff wishing to decentralise.
Given the "resultant costly and negative implications for effective public administration", the motion calls on the Government to review the scope and timing of the programme.
A motion from the union's finance branch goes further, calling for "a suspension of the current programme, pending a published administrative assessment".
A motion tabled by the Fás branch calls on the union to ascertain from the State training and jobs agency "what exactly are the plans for the 99 per cent of staff who do not intend decentralising to Birr".
The justice, equality and law reform branch says the programme will result in "significant surpluses of senior staff in Dublin".
As a result, it wants the union to negotiate an extension of the existing career-break scheme to allow civil servants to take up employment in the private sector, where there is no conflict of interest involved. The branch also wants the union to seek an enhanced early retirement package for members.
