THE DECENTRALISATION plan created by former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy has been described as a “crude and botched initiative” by a Fianna Fáil colleague who sat at the Cabinet table with him.
Tom Kitt, Government chief whip until 2008, said Mr McCreevy presented the project as a radical proposal when it was unveiled in December 2003.
“In truth, it was a failed initiative, and we need to deal with it,” said Mr Kitt, who said he expressed reservations on the plan to Mr McCreevy and to then taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the time.
“It was unveiled by Mr McCreevy without consultation with anybody, or a proper Cabinet discussion. It was based on questionable foundations that largely ignored the National Spatial Strategy, and allowed for a move to every constituency. It was parish pump and parochial.”
Mr Kitt was speaking after a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sports and Tourism, which he chairs.
Mr McCreevy’s decentralisation plan envisaged more than 10,000 public servants transferring from Dublin to 53 centres across the State. Last year, the Government suspended all those elements of it that were not near completion.
The comments came after a discussion about decentralisation of the Equality Authority to Roscrea. Last year, the Government announced it was suspending large parts of the controversial project because of the recession.
“The botched nature of this project means we are actually losing a lot of corporate memory from the public service,” he said.
Mr Kitt said that as a former minister of state for overseas and development aid (ODA) he believed it was a “major mistake” to move the ODA headquarters from Dublin to Limerick.
Officials need to hold crucial meetings with representatives of agencies, governments and non-government organisations, who, in the vast majority of cases, fly into Dublin, necessitating trips from Limerick to meet them, he said.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said no consideration was being given to transferring the ODA office and staff to Dublin. He accepted there was an issue of finding replacement staff for those who leave the Limerick office. “Because of the public service recruitment embargo, there is a general difficulty replacing departing staff across the civil service. The situation in the office in Limerick is not exceptional. Measures are under consideration how best to manage this situation, in particular, in the context of the annual diplomatic rotations which will take place over the summer period,” he said.