The Government has emphatically ruled out any rethink of its plan to move eight Government Departments and the Office of Public Works out of Dublin, amid growing evidence of opposition to the plan at senior levels in the Civil Service.
Dismissing reports of a possible compromise involving the retention of secretaries-general and the most senior staff in Dublin, a spokesman for the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said yesterday: "No. It won't happen."
A Government spokeswoman said there was "no truth in reports in the Sunday newspapers today that there will be any dilution of the decentralisation package announced on budget day.
"The decentralisation package will be implemented in full as announced by the Minister for Finance last Wednesday. It is not up for discussion."
She said the new group charged with implementing the radical plan would meet this week and had three months to draw up a plan for the first phase of the programme.
Civil service unions are to raise questions about the rationale behind the locations chosen for a number of Government Departments at a meeting with their management on Wednesday.
The general secretary of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants (AHCPS), Mr Seán O'Riordain, said last night he would be asking why three-quarters of the locations chosen were neither gateways nor hubs under the National Spatial Strategy; how collective governance would function with a minister based in Dublin, a secretary-general somewhere else and a Department possibly in three or four bases; and how to ensure the moves added to rather than detracted from administrative efficiency. He emphasised that his union was "not hostile" to decentralisation and was only raising questions at this stage. He will raise these and other issues at Wednesday's monthly meeting of the civil service general council, which is attended by management and union representatives.
He would be asking what the basis was for decisions such as locating the Department of the Gaeltacht at Knock Airport, which was not in a Gaeltacht area.
"Or why is the Department of the Marine being moved to that well-known seafaring county, Cavan?" He said the first criterion of his union - which represents principal officers and assistant principals - was that the process would be voluntary, a detail confirmed by Mr McCreevy when he made his announcement last week.
The Government insistence that its decision is irreversible follows reports of strong opposition to the plan, particularly at senior Civil Service level with several secretaries-general saying privately they believed relocating them in provincial centres would mean policy-making would be a more disjointed, less efficient process. Civil Service sources in several Government Departments earmarked for a move say many staff will use the fact that the process is to be voluntary to decline to move, creating major personnel and promotion problems.
These sources say many senior civil servants - typically in their 40s or older, many with spouses in Dublin-based careers and with children settled in Dublin schools - will not want to move to the provincial locations designated for Departmental headquarters: Cavan, Drogheda, Killarney, Knock Airport, Newbridge, Mullingar, Trim and Wexford.
Last Friday Mr McCreevy used a scheduled meeting with several secretaries-general to express his anger at a report in this newspaper on the opposition at senior level. Senior civil servants were annoyed at the lack of consultation, the report had said. Most only heard of the plans 48 hours before they were announced.
However, sources from the Department of the Taoiseach and Department of Finance moved yesterday to stop speculation about a compromise. "It doesn't need to be discussed. It only needs to be implemented," said one.