The first step towards decentralising one Government department will be taken in south Mayo today when the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuív, visits Knock International Airport with his senior civil servants.
Just 40 minutes from Dublin by air and an hour by road from Galway, the airport has to be the "most imaginative" new location in the Government's decentralisation plan, according to the Minister. Mr Ó Cuív, Fianna Fáil TD for Galway West, expects the Department to be one of the first to shift, as a land bank has already been secured and will be serviced by Mayo County Council at Knock airport.
While the main body of 140 staff will transfer to Knock, 10 will remain in the Gaeltacht section in Furbo, Co Galway. Claremorris, also in Co Mayo, is due to receive 150 staff attached to the Office of Public Works. Galway and Donegal are also set to receive some of Mr Ó Cuív's team.
About 40 staff with the Area Development Management under his aegis will be based in Clifden, Co Galway, while 30 staff attached to Foras na Gaeilge will be based at Gweedore, Co Donegal.
Mr Ó Cuív and his Department secretary-general, Mr Gerry Kearney, will discuss the logistics of the move to Knock airport this morning with the airport's senior management team and will inspect potential sites. The airport has 24.28 hectares of available development land.
The Minister says he has always viewed Knock as a centre of development in the province, and recently approved Clár funding of €353,400 for further development of its car-park.
The airport's passenger traffic has increased by 25 per cent this year under its new management team, headed by British-based Irish businessman, Mr Joseph Kennedy, and chief executive, Mr Liam Scollan.
"By building up critical mass at this location,, I believe that the late Monsignor James Horan's vision of Knock airport becoming a central hub for renewal in Connacht will become a reality," the Minister said.
Mr Scollan said management and staff at the airport will fully support the decentralisation on every level. He believes the Department's decentralisation will attract many other businesses and projects to relocate there soon. The big challenge for the nearest town, Charlestown, will be to put good social infrastructure in place, according to Cllr Gerry Murray, chairman of Charlestown Development Association.
