The Labour Party has called on the Government to abandon its current decentralisation plan after figures showed it was paying an average of €430,000 an acre for decentralisation sites around the country.
According to details released by the Office of Public Works, the State has to date paid €35.7 million for 20 sites around the country, which will be used as headquarters and offices for more than 10 departments and State agencies that are due to decentralise by the end of 2008.
However, the OPW has claimed the land purchases were "value for money for the taxpayer" and the figures had to be seen in the context of an overall decentralisation plan.
Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton, who was given the information through a response to a parliamentary question, said the average cost per acre of €430,000 was "more than double the cost of the controversial prison site at Thornton Hall in north Co Dublin".
"This is a staggering amount to pay for a decentralisation scheme that threatens to become the biggest flop in the history of the State."
"It is clear that decentralisation was never costed, planned or targeted towards the public need," she said. "The best thing the Government could do now is return to the drawing board and come up with a decentralisation plan that is economically viable and realistic."
A spokesman for the OPW, however, said Labour was "not comparing like with like". "The €430,000 average figure includes a wide variety of land deals," he said. "For example, it includes the purchase of a site in the centre of Killarney for an average of €2 million an acre on the one hand, and a six-acre site in Longford which was bought for €69,000 an acre."
He said these purchase price figures should be compared with some of the land sales the OPW has been involved in, citing the sale of the site of the old veterinary college in Ballsbridge, which has been valued at €50 million an acre.
He said the OPW had used a variety of lands and deals in assembling the 20 sites to date, including the purchase of local authority sites at a significantly reduced cost, the use of sites already owned by the State and the lease of private office blocks.