The Government's decentralisation programme was "never a Dublin-only strategy", Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted as Opposition leaders claimed a failure of planning in the move.
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said that just 15 per cent of the decentralisation programme had been implemented and that, of the 10,900 people who had applied for the programme, "more than half of those are from outside Dublin".
Mr Bruton said the strategy was intended "to move posts out of Dublin, to ease pressures on Dublin". But half the people "who are moving were not in Dublin, and the Government still will not admit that there was a failure of planning and strategy framing in regard to this programme".
Mr Ahern said the strategy was to move 7,200 people, and 11,000 people wanted to move. "That includes people in other locations. It was never a Dublin-only strategy," he said.
When Mr Bruton said that the purpose was "to move public servants from Dublin, it was not to move them around the country", the Taoiseach replied: "That is what it is doing, but a civil servant who works in Sligo and wants to move somewhere else should not be disbarred from doing so."
Mr Ahern accepted that few State agencies wanted to move out of Dublin because there had never been an agreement on the transfer of staff between agencies. He said the Department of Finance had written to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions about forming a small group to "explore whether progress can be made on this issue".
Mr Ahern told Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin that many State agency staff "think differently from public servants about decentralisation, and they do not see it as something they want to do . . . We must try to accommodate these people".
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said that when Charlie McCreevy announced the scheme, "he told us it was designed to reduce the Dublin mindset in the running of the country, ease traffic in Dublin", and reduce house prices.
