The Impact trade union has claimed it will cost €65 million a year to replace specialist civil servants who would stay in Dublin if the Government's decentralisation programme is introduced.
Impact, which represents 1,600 specialist civil servants and state agency staff earmarked for decentralisation, today argued that little progress has been made in implementing the plan.
The Government plans to move 10,000 civil and public servants to more than 50 locations around the State. The plan has met with fierce resistance from within the civil service, with Sitpu, Impact, the TEEU, the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants and others opposing it as it stands.
IMPACT National Secretary Louise O'Donnell said today only 15 per cent of professional and technical staff have volunteered to relocate.
Impact today launched a policy document entitled Why Decentralisation Isn't Workingin which it outlined a number of proposals to help the programme move from what it describes as a "state of paralysis".
Primary among them is removing certain departments or State agencies from the programme where decentralisation has been shown to be neither practical nor cost-effective or, failing that, retaining certain aspects of their work in Dublin if necessary.
The union also calls for the timetable for decentralisation to be lengthened and for the introduction of interdepartmental competitions and cross-stream promotions to aid movement between Government bodies.
Ms O'Donnell said the majority of its members would not move "under any circumstances," even if the Government offered inducements.
"This makes decentralisation impossible in organisations that depend heavily on specialists as they cannot be replaced with non-specialist staff," she said.
If they refused to move, they would be left in Dublin with no obvious role. It would cost the Government up to €65 million per year to recruit specialist staff to replace them.
Ms O'Donnell said the union had put its proposals to Departmental of Finance officials last month, "but we were told but they said they could not respond to the union's suggestions as they were 'political decisions'".
She said Minister of State Tom Parlon, who is responsible for implementing the programme, has not replied to a request made in December for a meeting.
The union said it is to begin political lobbying in an effort to make decentralisation an issue in next year's General Election. It will hold its annual conference in Killarney at the end of this month. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is due to address delegates.