The Government has begun to step back from its target to complete decentralisation by 2007 after the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Tom Parlon, said he could not guarantee that the deadline would be met.
Mr Parlon also suggested yesterday that the deadline set by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, was merely a means of "focusing" minds on the plan within the civil and public service.
He was speaking to reporters after the Government published results from the decentralisation website which showed that the number of Dublin-based civil and public servants who want to move has fallen well short of the Government target.
While the figures have improved in the eight weeks since the previous survey, only 4,245 Dublin-based civil and public servants were interested in applying for the 9,500 jobs in new locations which were available in the plan.
However, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said in a statement that the latest figures were hugely encouraging.
"The Government has an obligation to all those who have applied to participate in the programme, as well as to the towns to which they will be relocating, and all concerned can be assured that the Government won't be found wanting in meeting that obligation," he said.
But after Mr McCreevy reiterated for months that the programme will be finished by 2007, Mr Parlon raised doubt about the deadline and would not specify when the decentralisation plan could be finished.
"We have a two-year lead-in period from now. I don't know if there is such a thing as a deadline. Minister McCreevy set out a 2007 deadline for the overall operation. I can't guarantee that we're going to be finished in 2007. I can guarantee that we're going to have a major part of the whole programme in place by 2007."
Asked about Mr McCreevy's repeated insistence that there would be no deviation from the deadline, Mr Parlon said: "I think that was to focus individuals' attention."
Mr Parlon said the implementation group chaired by Mr Phil Flynn would develop a plan on the "sequencing" of decentralisation in the next month.
While offices with the highest application rates will be moved first, Mr Parlon said it was not the case that those that received low application rates would not be moved at all.
Fine Gael's finance spokesman Mr Richard Bruton said elements of the plan now seemed extremely doubtful.
"These results need to be carefully assessed to identify which elements of the decentralisation programme can be successful. The worst thing that can happen is that the Government pushes blindly ahead and leaves behind a decentralisation programme that fails."
There was a mixed response to the latest figures from trade unions.
IMPACT, which represents professional grade civil servants, called for organisations to be removed from the programme if it is not clearly practical to relocate them.
However, the Civil and Public Service Union said the figures suggested that the entire programme could be delivered within 6 years.
Mr Parlon said the Government had agreed in principle to acquire land for new buildings at a cost of between €50,000 and €500,000 per acre in 13 sites.
He said contracts would not be signed until the Government sanctioned the move of individual Departments.
With sales of State buildings and land realising €100 million this year, the State would make an overall net saving from decentralisation.
The overall construction cost of buildings in the 53 new sites would be €800 million, he said. However, much of the expenditure will be paid by the private-sector builders who lease the buildings back to the State in public-private partnerships.
The cost of annual leases was estimated at €50 million to €60 million.
