The Department of Education and Science yesterday opened its new regional office in Navan, Co Meath. John Downes reports.
The office, serving Cavan, Louth, Meath and Monaghan, will provide access to various departmental publications and general educational information.
It will be open from Monday to Friday, between 10 a.m. and 12.45 p.m. and 2 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. A spokeswoman for the Department said the opening of the new north-eastern regional office formed part of an "ongoing process of engagement with communities in the planning and delivery of educational services".
This has led to the opening of four other regional centres since March in Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Sligo.
However, the spokeswoman denied that the establishment of the new offices was linked to the decentralisation process.
"This restructuring predates the announcement on decentralisation and is not related. Each regional office will have four administrative staff. These staff were recruited both internally and externally," she said.
Recently the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said regional offices would be good for the Department. He said it was not possible for the Department to fulfil its core functions of education policy-making, resource allocation and quality assurance and, at the same time, give proper attention to matters best addressed at regional level.
Among the core duties of the new office will be to act as a single point of contact for information to the public on education services available in the region; to represent the Department on the county development boards and on the regional drugs task force; and to identify educational issues and concerns which arise at local level.
Five more regional offices are currently being established in Dublin South County, Dublin City and Fingal, the western region, the midlands and the Kildare/Wicklow region.