The Government has suffered a serious setback to its plans to move more than 10,000 civil and public servants out of Dublin by the end of 2006, with new figures showing a poor level of interest in the project.
Warnings from the Opposition and trade unions that there was little appetite for decentralisation were proved correct in official figures, which showed that 2,200 Dublin-based civil servants were interested in the 6,300 new regional positions available in the first round of offers.
The application figures from the Government's decentralisation website also showed that only 290 State agency staff were interested in moving to some 2,200 new regional jobs in the agencies.
The Minister for Finance, Mr MrCreevy, said he was disappointed with the applications for State agency jobs, but the results from the Civil Service were very encouraging.
"The preliminary results represent a good base from which to move forward with the implementation of the decentralisation programme," he said.
Despite the low level of interest, Mr McCreevy disclosed that the Government had decided on the location of five new regional offices outside Dublin.
The latest package includes the location of 300 Health Services Executive jobs in Naas, Co Kildare, in Mr McCreevy's own constituency, and 50 Health Information and Quality Authority jobs in Cork, in the constituency of the Minister for Health, Mr Martin.
Some 125 IT jobs in agriculture will go to Portlaoise, which is in the constituency of the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Tom Parlon, who is leading the decentralisation project. An additional 745 IT jobs will go to Drogheda, Co Louth, and Kildare town.
Mr McCreevy's spokesman rejected any suggestion of clientelism in the choice of locations. "The decision in each case here is based on a business case being made," he said.
He also rejected suggestions that the timetable for decentralisation was under pressure. "I wouldn't accept that the deadline is slipping. This is a starting position. It is still the Minister's position that the programme will be largely completed by the end of 2006."
Officials in Mr McCreevy's Department suggested that staff might have been slow to come forward after the initial deadline for applications was put back until September. They also said that the work of matching in specific regional jobs had yet to begin.
The figures provide a detailed breakdown of the level of interest in moving to individual Departments, with most bodies falling far short of the target.
While 378 jobs in the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources are to go to Cavan, only 120 public servants said they were interested in moving to the town. Of those, 11 work for the Department in Dublin.
But while Mr McCreevy said that sites and premises in more than 50 decentralisation locations would be secured by the Office of Public Works by the end of the year, Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, claimed the programme was "in tatters".
Labour's spokeswoman, Ms Joan Burton, said the project would cause enormous damage to the effectiveness of the public service.
In addition to Dublin-based staff who are interested in moving, the figures show that 2,200 civil servants outside Dublin were interested in moving to new regional locations. Some 200 State agency staff outside Dublin would move to new or other existing regional locations.
"It's clear that some people in Departments down the country want to change their location outside of Dublin, but this can't cloak the huge deficit of people in Dublin in Departments who want to go down the country," said Mr Seán Ó Riordáin, general secretary of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants.
Applications are running at 37-40 per cent of the jobs in grades between clerical officer and administrative officers. At the principal officer grade, applications are at 16 per cent.
No figures were made available for the most senior Civil Service grades of assistant secretary and secretary general.
