De-Centralisation

Long Term the right decision, but got at being the operative word and the worst possible timing.

I work for two organisations on both sides of the border, I use the enterprise a lot, we deal with the Department of Tourism. Possible to hold one meeting in Dublin and one in Belfast in one day, no problem. One meeting in Killarney (Kerry South TD J’O’D) and another in Belfast, no chance.

Seceondly the Dublin Office market is on its knees vacancy is 15.4% (Jack Fagan Irish Times) or Three Years supply.

Tax breaks in the middle of a boom, pulling the rug at the cyclical floor.

Well done lads you have underperformed the Sunday Indo’s Market Monkey yet again.

Freeing up that amount of office space in Dublin will tear the arse out of the Commercial Property market in the city

Presumably the end of the Hawkins House refurbishment plan too?

That was shelved about six months prior I believe, although with An Post moving from College house, and with other OPW managed vacant buildings coming on stream, that entire block is looking shakey. An Attractive site to develop a decent development

Really?
This is the first time I’ve heard of the plans being officially ditched for Hawkins.

Couldn’t believe the Dept of Agriculture moving – one of the largest buildings in Dublin being vacated.
What’s going to happen to the 100 year lease the State stumbled into with this building on Kildare St?
Perhaps Health could move from Hawkins to here – and the OPW, from the goodness of it’s heart, knock Hawkins flat on its face and indulge in some faceless property development and build some quality 6 storey apartments in its place, hence rejuvinating the area, encourage inner-city living, and restore the low-rise skyline of this area of the city centre.

Also to move on Kildare St (well kind of) is the Dept of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources.

Can’t you already hear the developers scrambling over each other to throw up more sprawling semi-ds to accomodate the armies of white-collars trooping out to the regions.
Well I never – benifitting the very supporters of FF

Is the OPW to move completely from its flagship headquarters on Stephens Green?

McCreevy said that the locations were picked because of their access to “road and rail routes”.

Trim lost it’s rail service in 1963

Cavan Town lost it’s rail service in 1963

Knock never had a rail service and the Western Rail Corridor (nearest line) lost it’s sevice in 1974 and is deemed unviable by the present government even though they are opening offices all allowing new towns and hosuing estate to spring up all along it.

Sounds like a FF re-election ploy and nothing else.

BTW he said no to Cardon Tax and yes to more motorways and tax relife on inner city car parks and Ireland now ofically is one of the most polluted countries in the EU thanks to auto emmisions and we face hundreds of million in fines. But McCreevy is doing everything to increse emmision.

something just ain’t right… The road building lobby are spending our taxes and we’ll end up paying the fines for our air quality. How come nobody talks about this?

http://www.platform11.org

http://www.antaisce.org/press/index.html?id=289

There are extensive consulations being carried out now with the view to legislate – incl carbon taxes – next year. Apparently.

Only 2,600 of the 10,300 jobs are going to the designated gateways & hubs, this is madness.

On 2 points from Graham

What’s going to happen to the 100 year lease the State stumbled into with this building on Kildare St?

The state bought this out in the early 90s

Also to move on Kildare St (well kind of) is the Dept of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources.

Nope – that’s off to Cavan (eventually) – only in Ireland would the Department of the Marine be in a landlocked county

Wait ’til all those civil cervants want to build their bungalows on the outskirts of these towns, Bungalow blight! ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

FF were never really committed to the Spatial Strategy plan, they are a clientilist, populist party and they’re going to love this in the FF heartlands. Brilliant stroke with the upcoming local elections!

Maybe all this vacant office space will encourage conversion to apartments which I’m sure everybody agrees here will be a good thing.

The Sale of Numbers 1 + 2 Wilton Terrace By Jones Lang last year proves that offices can be converted into apartments very sucessfully

What will happen to all those prestigeous Ministerial headquarters in Dublin…. should the story become true and decentralisation happen. Im thinking of Defence (Infirmary Road), Education (Tyrone House – recently renovated) and OPW in particular.

One good thing is the opportunity for the OPW to offload some of the architectural tat that it currently uses. Particularly for Social Welfare and Comm. Marine & N R. Bye bye Apollo House.

How about moving that whole shower too out of Leinster House and down to Connemara or the Bog of Allen.

The one significant thing that does bother me slightly about OPW designs, is that sometimes, a great project or renovation goes a bit under-utilised. Because the buildings need some kind of public liability insurance or something to really expand their functionality. I am aware of one very classy job done by the OPW down the country, which is a bit of a nonsense – lovely building, design etc. Lovely job – it just doesn’t do much more than any ‘brochure display unit’ could do in the local newsagents. Get the idea?

I mean, short of ‘promoting’ tourist history/culture at local level – some of their work around the country doesn’t have as much functionality as say a National School or something. But there was no expense at all saved on the job I know, best materials, detailing etc. It typically took like two whole generations to achieve and it is perfect architecturally in many respects. It gets about two visitors a day at peak season and employs one person and a student staring at the wall! The OPW are capable of awesome designs, but finding functionality for those renovation/restoration works, insurance etc, etc is a problem. It is not lack of architectural ability – it is lack of basic strategic business entrepeneur-ship.

On a similar point, what has Temple Bar become? Has its programme expanded, improved or otherwise gained much shape over the years? Is it thriving? Are all those award winning buildings actually hubs of activity. I think like the OPW thing, it is the exact same problem. I have been following the recent debate about giving the LA downtown the ‘cultural architectural treatment’. But there has been a very strong argument to leave it – it is good already. It provides very reasonably priced real-estate for all kinds of small businesses to develop, for low class people to become middle class people by working, producing and selling stuff there is a market for.

What kind of a product is most OPW designed centres selling?

Just thinking too that the Custom House (The Dept. of the Environment will need a new logo) and the Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park will become vacant, as well as many others. Might be detrimental for historic or landmark buildings in Dublin. The Custom House eventally becoming a drug centre or a night club after years of idleness etc….
Hope that the new offices built around the country will be of a stately design too.

Wasn’t JFK right when he spoke of what might have happened if his grandfather stayed in New Ross and DEvalearaaaaaah stayed in Brooklyn.

greg f, are you saying that you hope they build some kind of neo classical headquarters around the country?

Not at all,

Neo-Classical was once cutting edge building technology.

I want to see contemporary cutting edge Fourth Generation spec-ed to the hilt designed by Irish or indeed international architects.

In 200 years they will look back at Apollo House, mock Regency hags like 30 Herbert Street and worse an urban sprawl that extends from Dundalk to Valentia.

Where are the modern classics? Not enough in this city, Liffey house is a building that I could never object to given its relationship with what surrounds it.

I agree with Diaspora,What!
Post modernism has had its day. Just hope the new HQs have a bit of thought in their designs and surrounding landscapes that will make them unique and a focal point in their areas.

ok sorry, i was just making sure those ideas were dead and buried. i think if they follow the example of the county halls being built at the moment we will be doing just fine.

That depends,

Galway City Council, which is my origin got it right a long time ago. South Dublin County Council.. lets say its more Parkwest than CityWest

Could always dismantle the Custom House and re-erect it in a field somewhere…

Wonder who’s going to move in – whoever is is going to very fortunate, the interior office space is fantastic – lots of sophisticated early 20th century charm with high ceilings, dark-stained doors, leaded glass, chunky radiators etc

Is the Dept of Comm & Marine not in that Setanta pile on Kildare/Nassau/Sth Fredrick/Molesworth St?

Considering that part of decentralisation relies on selling some of the Dublin properties, one would presume that the Dept of Agriculture is going to be sold off – should be lots of cash for the new building then – prime Dublin office building in the city centre v a field in the country.

i was referring to buildings like fingal county hall, limerick county offices, offaly county offices etc.

Rory W quote:
Also to move on Kildare St (well kind of) is the Dept of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources.

Nope – that’s off to Cavan (eventually) – only in Ireland would the Department of the Marine be in a landlocked county

It is almost as good as Bolivia having a Navy on Lake Titticaca, I thought that was a joke until we met a couple of the sailors, they like the Irish government actually took the entire silly mess quite seriously.

I am just going to add another building to the list of dinosaurs here. What about the Central Bank in Dame Street? I know from one source that a lot of its operations exist out in Sandyford, yeah, the same place where LUAS is going to. Have many of you seen Sandyford lately? That seems to be where larger scale developments are now happening, and serviced by very expensive transport systems like the LUAS lightrail. How appropriate is the Central Bank Building in Dame Street to its function these days?

A lot of bank buildings have been going haven’t they. Isn’t a lot of these just down to web connectivity? That technology boom we all just witnessed? What I do find scary is how many cameras point at you out in Sandyford. You cannot come even within a 50 foot radius of most buildings, without some gerk security guy getting his knickers in a twist, stuck away in some security facility somewhere. Just look at what happens to Sandyford at weekends – it just becomes a space for a few overly-diligent nerd geeks working for MicroSoft overtime, and the whims of the security companies.

At least the Central Bank in Dame Street did exist within an environment of selling records, burgers and booze! Now a fitting environment for an public or financial service seems to be a heavily managed ‘office park’ environment. With separation of where people live and work. Connections are made using shiny looking LUAS trains.

This is all absolute nonsense without the proper infrastructure……. Drove the Cork-Dublin road very recently. dream on lads!!!……………………….. Minor gripe, any chance of signposts on the route to mirror even a second world country?

Alice in wonderland!

Sometimes problems of living and working too close together get too much to cope with!

Shanghai massive wire problem

Too centralised, too dense, too connected?

It is official,

Dublin People do not work in the civil service but the policy is merely allowing country people to go home according to Martin Cullen.

In the same interview critical mass is apparantly not the only issue in regional development.

The only issue that is important are consultants reports.

Buchanan 1960’s

ERDO 1985 (Liam Lawlors one)

National Spatial Strategy 2002

Why get experts to advise when Tom Parlon and John O’Donaghue can predicate the future.

I saw the feature on TV3 this morning about it.

Is the Dept of Comm & Marine not in that Setanta pile on Kildare/Nassau/Sth Fredrick/Molesworth St?

Nope – its in Leeson Lane Opposite Engineers paradise (Hartigans) and on Adelaide Road. A branch ogf the Revenue were in Setanta the last time I looked

Sorry about that Rory,

There is nothing worse than being misquoted:

You are correct,

@RTE Interactive wrote:

Flynn is charged after firearms find

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0811/flynnp.html

11 August 2005 17:19
RTÉ News has learned that the former head of the Government’s decentralisation project, Phil Flynn, has been charged with firearms offences.

Officers from the Criminal Assets Bureau served summonses on the former chairman of Bank of Scotland (Ireland), for possession of a firearm and ammunition without a licence.

The charges arose after detectives searched Mr Flynn’s office in Dublin City Centre and found a gun and ammunition.

Mr Flynn was interviewed and a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

He has been summonsed to appear before the Dublin District Court on 10 October.

Mr Flynn has been under investigation by the CAB since it emerged that he had travelled to Bulgaria with the principal figure in the company at the centre of the garda investigation into money-laundering in the republican movement.

Mr Flynn, a former vice-president of Sinn Féin and a former ICTU president, told RTÉ in February that he went to Bulgaria but did not explain the circumstances of the visit.

Members of the Criminal Assets Bureau have also questioned Mr Flynn on his involvement with Chesterton Finance Company Ltd.

The company’s business is described in its official filings as financial intermediation except insurance and pension funding.

While Mr Flynn’s name does not appear on the current Companies Office records for Chesterton, he confirmed that he was one of its non-executive directors.

Mr Flynn said gardaí visited his home in Cabra, north Dublin, and his office in Harcourt Street in the city centre.

He said they took files and documents dealing with his non-executive directorship of the company. It emerged yesterday that Mr Flynn’s brother, Mr James Flynn, a Dundalk-based broker, has a business relationship with Chesterton.

Even I’m stunned to find out this guys former role

Does anyone know how many of the buildings are under construction or have any images?

Thanks

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=17899

A very interesting review of whats considered hot or not.

“What about the Central Bank in Dame Street? I know from one source that a lot of its operations exist out in Sandyford…”

Dame Street is the Headquarters, Sandyford is the printing plant.

Revised spending estimates published

February 23, 2006 12:04
Finance Minister Brian Cowen has presented the revised estimates of Government spending for this year to the Dail.

The estimates reflect the spending totals announced on Budget day, with an additional €90m relating to changes agreed since then. Total spending in 2006 will be €50.6 billion, up 13% on 2005.

The additional sum mainly concerns money being spent from the Dormant Accounts Fund and an extra €25m for capital investment in second-level schools.

€105m has been allocated to the Government’s decentralisation programme, down from an original Budget allocation of €155m, but extra spending of €50m will be added to future years. The review follows an examination of progress on acquiring and developing property this year.

The Government also said it would not know how much money was spent on the health service last year until the Health Service Executive finalised its accounts at the end of March.

From RTE

@RTE wrote:

€105m has been allocated to the Government’s decentralisation programme, down from an original Budget allocation of €155m, but extra spending of €50m will be added to future years.

So the climbdown has begun?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

PRESS RELEASE

East-on-Water Steering Committee Demands The Opening of the Eastern Fish Corridor

Decades of Government prejudice against the landlocked regions of this country have finally come to and end with the formation of the East-on-Water Community Campaign which demands that the Killybegs Fishing Fleet be decentralised, and that these landlocked regions be given their fair share of the government investment in the marine fishing industry.

Central to this plan is the construction of the Eastern Fish Corridor – a new waterway connecting the Royal and Grand Canals across the Bog of Allen.

East-on-Water demands that the Midlands gets it fair share of the trawlers, fishing crates, lobster pots and nets which Government policy over several decades has concentrated on developing in Donegal while ignoring the enormous potential for larges catches of Minnows, Frogs and Rats in Mid-Eastern Leinster. The construction of the very viable Eastern Fish Corridor represents a sea change in government fisheries policy. It finally puts an end to the “Donegal Mindset”.

The East on Water steering committee has recently issued an expert working report, which outlines the phased opening of the Eastern Fish Corridor.

Phase One: 2006 – First Donegal Trawler is decentralised along with it crew to the pond in Stephens Green.

Phase 2: 2007 – The construction begins on the Eastern Fish Corridor through the bog of Allen to Edenderry – this will coincide with large stocks of live cod, herring and haddock being decentralised from the North Atlantic basin and released into the Royal and Grand Canals.

Phase 3: 2008 – Minister Pat “the Cope” Gallagher is beseeched by the East on Water steering committee to complete the project and decentralises the last of the over congested Donegal fishing fleet to the Midlands.

Phase Four: 2009 – The East on Water committee completely loses interest in fishing and leaves the Irish taxpayers to pick up the bill.

Said Independent TD Paranoid McHysterical of the East-on-Water Steering Committee. “The Eastern Fish Corridor finally gives the landlocked regions of this country a fair share of the Marine Fisheries Industry and makes perfect economic sense. Trawlers will be able to fish in the Midlands and deliver their catch while avoiding the Ballyshannon bottleneck. Decades of Government favouritism towards Donegal has meant that the deprived children of the Midlands have never even seen a deep water fishing trawler and we pay our taxes too and deserve our fair share of the fish pie”

ENDS

Can we assume that you have a problem with the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor? A simple to execute, cost effective and viable scheme which will have huge advantages for the region served not least the development of proper commuter services for the rapidly growing cities of Limerick, Galway and eventually Sligo.
Maybe you dont, but your piece (which is pretty funny and fantastically absurdist!) does seem like a bit of a thinly veiled attack on the project!

SIPTU members vote for strike action at FÁS

20 March 2006 12:54
SIPTU members at FÁS have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action over Government plans to decentralise the agency to Birr, Co Offaly.

Of the 400 workers at FÁS, 250 are represented by SIPTU and 87% of those have voted for strike action.

The union says that while decentralisation is supposed to be voluntary, pressure to move is being imposed on staff by making promotion dependent on agreement to relocate outside Dublin.

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Workers also complain that they have been given no indication of what will happen to those who choose to stay in Dublin.

The National Executive Council of SIPTU will meet in the next few days to decide on granting sanction for industrial action. If it does so, the union will serve two weeks’ strike notice.

It is expected that initially the workers will stage short intermittent stoppages.

Head of Human Resources at FÁS, Oliver Egan, said management was obliged to implement Government policy, and was prepared to engage with the union as proposed by the Labour Court.

He also warned that unless the issue is resolved, the long-term impact on the decentralisation agenda could be significant.

Any thoughts on this; drip drip or fatal blow?

Morning strikes at Dublin FÁS offices

05 April 2006 13:52
Around 50 FÁS employees picketed outside the agency’s head quarters on Dublin’s Baggot Street this morning.

They are against the Government’s plans to decentralise the agency to Birr, Co Offaly.

Pickets were also placed at three other Dublin offices in Clyde Road, South Circular Road and Peter Street. Pickets were to remain at the four offices until 11am this morning.

Yesterday, ten hours of talks at the Labour Relations Commission failed to resolve the row.

It is understood that while a management proposal to resume talks was acceptable to the union, it was subsequently withdrawn and redrafted.

The new draft which would have required the union to accept decentralisation in principle was said to be a ‘bridge too far’ for staff.

Only a small minority of the 400 staff at FÁS have agreed to decentralise to Birr.

250 staff who are members of SIPTU voted to take action after management said promotions would be linked to being prepared to relocate to Birr.

SIPTU said it was the first of a series of stoppages over decentralisation.

It appears that the deadman is attracting some unwanted attention

Call for decentralisation review as Ahern admits difficulties
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 13th May, 2006

Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has called for a review of the Government’s decentralisation plan after the Taoiseach admitted it was facing serious difficulties.

The plan, which would see 10,600 civil and public servants being moved from Dublin to over 50 locations around the country, has met with opposition from unions. Staff in FAS have been staging industrial action over what they claim is pressure being put on them to move.

Bertie Ahern admitted in an interview published today that the Government’s deadline for decentralisation looked increasingly unlikely to be met. “We might have taken too much on in one go,” he said. “We put ourselves in too tight a timeframe.”

Mr Rabbitte said today Mr Ahern’s comments proved that it was the “beginning of the end” for the plan, which was devised by former Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy in December 2003. “It was not thought out, poorly planned and incapable of being implemented on the scale and in the timeframe proposed.”

He added: “The Taoiseach should now be honest with those locations which have been promised relocated agencies or Departments and which he knows is not going to happen.”

The Labour leader called on Mr Ahern to engage in an all-party review to agree “a properly planned programme of decentralisation based on the national spatial strategy”.

Siptu wants State agencies removed from the decentralisation plan. The union will hold a protest next week outside the offices of Minister of State at the Department of Finance Tom Parlon, who is responsible for implementing the project.

The Impact union, which represents 1,200 civil servants and state agency staff earmarked for relocation, warned last week it was planning a lobbying campaign for the next General Election as dissatisfaction with decentralisation was a major issue for Dublin voters.

Decentralisation is problematic says Ahern

13 May 2006 13:42
The Taoiseach has conceded that the Government may have taken too much on in one go with regard to its decentralisation plan.

In an interview with the Irish Independent, Mr Ahern said many civil and public servants wanted to move, but that the sizeable logistics involved were causing difficulties.

He was commenting on the plan to move more than 10,600 civil servants to 50 locations outside Dublin.

There have been continuing calls from civil service unions for the policy to be re-examined.

The Labour party leader Pat Rabbitte has called for a review of the government’s plans. He said the Taoiseach’s comments were an admission that decentralisation cannot work.

Finally some grasp of reality is starting to be shown by those in government;

Parlon’s position is starting to look untenable on this and the reference to him in Chaos in relation to the Standish situation was really quite unbelievable and displays what Osterich type positions he has the capacity to adopt.

really thomond…

parlon is on record as stating that he has 10600 people signed up to move, while seeking 10000. With the country so small there is no reason why the headquarters of many goverment function can’t be placed in different parts of the country. For goodness sake , france germany and america are hugely decentralised. Companies stretch across the globe with no trouble. With people commuting from portlaoise to dublin , why can’t fas be located in the midlands? They have ‘outlet’ sprinkled throughout the country , so it can’t make much difference where they are. what really difference would it make if the headquarters of aerlingus were in shannon? or the tourism boar was in galway. How often do the tourism boards actually meet face to face with others groups ? it only takes two hour to cross the country for goodness sake !!!

kerry food groups has their world headquarters in where ? kerry. decentralisation is a great idea. The only fault is that the expectation was raised that it could be done quickly.

Bertie admitted problems as he is only to happy to heap s**t on all three pd ministers (fairly/or not , depending on your opinion) Parlon has had this decentralisation thing for just long enough that he is now seen as ‘owning’ the issue/problem

This is a political discussion not appropriate to this website. thumbs down to you .thumbs down.

@a boyle wrote:

really thomond…

parlon is on record as stating that he has 10600 people signed up to move, while seeking 10000.

I’d love to see that list published on a department/agency by department basis

@a boyle wrote:

With the country so small there is no reason why the headquarters of many goverment function can’t be placed in different parts of the country. For goodness sake , france germany and america are hugely decentralised.

The difference is that places like France and Germany have decentralised to large centres taking the UK as an example large back office functions are decentralised to places like Sheffield or Liverpool and the key decision making functions are retained in the capital] Companies stretch across the globe with no trouble. With people commuting from portlaoise to dublin , why can’t fas be located in the midlands? They have ‘outlet’ sprinkled throughout the country , so it can’t make much difference where they are. what really difference would it make if the headquarters of aerlingus were in shannon? [/QUOTE]

Fas workers wish to remain in the capital as should be their right unless the government wishes to go the private sector route and pay redundancy re: Aer Lingus Shannon would be an acceptable location given the needs of their business but moving Marine to Virginia is akin to moving Aer Lingus to Belmullet.

@a boyle wrote:

or the tourism boar was in galway. How often do the tourism boards actually meet face to face with others groups ? it only takes two hour to cross the country for goodness sake !!!

Research indicates that even in the age of conference calls and e-commerce the average manager has at least 5 face to face meetings per week off site] kerry food groups has their world headquarters in where ? kerry. decentralisation is a great idea. The only fault is that the expectation was raised that it could be done quickly. [/QUOTE]

Kerry Foods are close to their main production site their business is entirely product driven comparisons with between a food ingredients leader and national governance have little vailidity.

@a boyle wrote:

Bertie admitted problems as he is only to happy to heap s**t on all three pd ministers (fairly/or not , depending on your opinion) Parlon has had this decentralisation thing for just long enough that he is now seen as ‘owning’ the issue/problem

This is a political discussion not appropriate to this website. thumbs down to you .thumbs down.

I agree spatial planning should have little to do with politics but in this instance it has; had a sensible decentralisation programme been put together where multi-department back office functions were decentralised to a small number of large sites in NSS designated gateways I amongst many others would be welcoming this

for many of the government functions the location of its headquarters is almost irrelevant. this is because these agencies have a national network. So say fas was in portlaoise, time lost travelling back to have meeting with the minister for jobs , is offset by time saved travelling to and from the network. This would apply to the departement for health & hse-no reason it could not be located outside the capital, it has to have regular contacts with all hospitals.

This applies directly to the department of education as. this department spends much more time deally with clients (schools) than with the rest of government. so it makes sense to move it west and save on travel between it and all the schools of the country .

Any large organisation has to overcome the human management issues that come with size and so how kerry foods runs itseld is very important in the context of government. 2 decentralisation in ireland is not like moving from london to another city , as ireland is tiny.a fraction of the size of other countries. it would be a county in america.

3. are you biased ? are you a manager of some organisation (and so perhaps have some real insight), or are you possibly a civil servant who doesn’t want to move out of the big smoke ?

U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon/

need I go on

The difference between back office and central administrative control cannot be stressed enough and your assertion that I work in the public sector is misplaced I work in a fee based environment so I have nothing other than an altuistic interest in this.

area of ireland 70,286 km squared
area of metropolitan paris 14,518.3 km squared

the country is tiny , tiny . i know that traffic makes it seem big , but is it really really small. what is proposed is not decentralisation but moving to the suburbs. the only parts of the country that are any distance from dublin are west cork , west kerry , and donegal.

So why move everything around if it has such a small population; surely you can see that the type of professional services required to run a government simply don’t exist in any location in this country other than Belfast or Cork and to a lessor extent Limerick and Galway.

How much would PPHARS have cost if the Deloitte consultants had to drive to Galway each time they had to meet a senior CC?

Put simply taking your figures of above Ireland would have a population of 60m if it had a similar population density of the Paris basin; it doesn’t and throwing jobs around to unsuitable locations will ensure that it never acheives a sustainable density.

so how kerry foods runs itseld is very important

Yes, Kerry Group have their headquarters in Tralee. They don’t have their staff catering operations to Aunascall, their HR dept. in Fenit, their IT staff in Castlegregory, their accountants in Lixnaw, etc. It would be nuts from a business point of view and decentralisation (as proposed) is simply nuts. It will add 100s of millions to the annual costs of running the civil service. Even ignoring all the milage for meetings, how will it be possible, for example, to offer any sort of IT support for an office of 50 civil servants in a village in Mayo? It will require massive duplication for basic support services which will result in huge inefficiencies.

If the government were serious about decentralisation, they would pick ONE location – say Shannon for example – and move the entire civil service there. But this plan isn’t about creating regional balance or easing the infrastructure pressures in Dublin. It’s a cynical political excercise to help certain TDs retain their seats at massive cost to the public purse.

The idea that technology can overcome all the blindingly obvious flaws with this plan is naive. This stance reminds me of paperless office advocates who stuck to their confident predictions for decades even as all empirical evidence demonstrated trends which completely contradicted their theories. I’ve used video-conferencing on and off for years and it is actually less productive than telephone conferencing. Despite the wishful thinking of some, this reality is being recognised and video-conferencing is actually used less, in my experience, these days than ten years ago. And telephone conferencing is FAR less productive than sharing an office with the relevant people. Anyone who claims otherwise has little experience of business or commerce.

Well put Jim I agree that this government has totally ignored the technical support required

Decentralisation protests could spread – Siptu
From:ireland.com
Monday, 15th May, 2006

Promotional prospects at Enterprise Ireland and the Combat Poverty Agency are being linked to workers’ willingness to relocate under the Government’s decentralisation plan, Siptu claimed today.

Branch organiser Owen Reidy said he expected the industrial action taking place at Fás over the issue, to spread to other State and related agencies.

Mr Reidy said similar conditions being attached to Fás workers’ terms of employment have emerged at Enterprise Ireland and the Combat Poverty Agency.

He said a Freedom of Information (FoI) request has revealed that positions arising from a voluntary early retirement scheme at Enterprise Ireland are contingent on a commitment to relocate to Shannon.

A Department of Finance memo regarding the signing of leases on new two premises for the agency at East Point in Dublin stated the contracts – due to be signed within weeks – must make provision for decentralisation.

Mr Reidy said the agency was seeking early opt-out clauses in the lease in an attempt to “lock staff into decentralising to Shannon”. The new premises are intended to consolidate workers currently based at four locations around Dublin.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is also insisting that future contracts include a clause making relocation to Monaghan a condition of employment, Mr Reidy added.

He said decentralisation “is now in disarray right across the State agency sector”. He warned that although the union would continue to use labour relations mechanisms, it would also consider industrial action.

He also rejected criticism of trade unions from the Minister of State at the Department of Finance Tom Parlon, who has responsibility for body co-ordinating decentralisation.

Mr Parlon, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works (OPW), said rivalries between trade unions over posts promotions are holding up the plans.

Mr Reidy said independent observers were critical of the plan for the same reasons as the unions. “There was no planning, no consultation with the stakeholders, and no foresight. It was a gimmick, a rabbit pulled out of a hat on Budget day.

“Now we [unions] have to deal with it and for whatever reason, the Government don’t seem to able to address the problems we’ve raised,” Mr Reidy told ireland.com .

He suggested the focus should be on civil servants where there is greater interest in decentralisation but insisted the plan was unsuitable for State agencies.

Siptu has organised a protest against decentralisation next week outside the OPW headquarters that is due to be attended by members in semi-State agencies represented by the union.

What exactly is Parlon’s point?

Harney concedes ‘issue’ with decentralisation

25 May 2006 16:58
The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, has acknowledged that ‘there is an issue’ in relation to the decentralisation of staff in semi-state organisations such as FÁS and Enterprise Ireland.

Ms Harney said she did not want to interfere in the industrial relations procedure currently underway at FÁS.

However, she has acknowledged that staff in those agencies could not simply transfer to other departments or organisations if they did not want to decentralise.

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Earlier, delegates at the IMPACT trade union conference called on the Government to reconsider its current proposal on decentralisation.

A number of speakers criticised the plan to relocate Government departments and state agencies out of Dublin, describing it as ill-conceived, unfair to workers, and damaging to the delivery of services to the public.

A number of motions were passed urging IMPACT’s executive to seek full redress for all members, disadvantaged as a result of their wish to remain in their current locations.

Delegates also instructed their negotiators to negotiate the removal from the decentralisation process of public bodies, State agencies and other organisations where the majority of staff are opposed to decentralisation.

The trade union, which has spearheaded opposition to the Government’s public service re-location plans, represents professional and technical public servants, the majority of whom have refused to leave Dublin.

IMPACT representatives are due to meet the Minister of State, Tom Parlon, next Tuesday to discuss the plans.

Meanwhile the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has said he does not agree with SIPTU President Jack O’Connor that decentralisation is now a central issue that could derail the current partnership pay talks.

Speaking at a conference on the modernising and management of public services, he said that if there is any pressure associated with decentralisation, it is to relocate the over 10,000 public servants who want to move as soon as possible.

Looks like the end

@Thomond Park wrote:

Looks like the end

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
🙂
KB2

Can I take that to mean that neither the middle nor the end will manifest themselves?

@Thomond Park wrote:

Can I take that to mean that neither the middle nor the end will manifest themselves?

Exactly. An Irish solution to an Irish problem. Bumble along, blathering “Shur it will be allright, it will come right. That’s fine, grand, loike”

No thought was put into decentralisation. Some gombeen politico heard about private sector outsourcing, thought it was “a good thing” and decided to do the same with the civil service.

Ireland’s real issue with the civil service is economy of scale, not location. Ireland has the same population as the greater Birmingham area but, to keep abreast of what is happening in Bruxelles, it must try to maintain a civil service capable of doing so. I believe in decentralisation, but it should be done properly as part of an overall plan, with appropriate controls and benchmarks. Start by tackling the health boards, have one board for the country, cut out the dead wood, job duplication, etc. and put the money saved into the key area – healthcare – not spending on administration. Then implement a phased (say 10years) programme to move “back-office” functions in the various Departments and create an “International Dept” that would handle EU matters for all departments. But will the mandarins give up that power, travel and their business class flights to Bruxelles? …………..
KB2

There is as you say far too much duplication of administration in this country and moving entire bodies to remote locations will only intensify such duplication as clientist TDs complain that their constituents in Donegal now have to travel to Cahersiveen for a particular service.

I agree that a certain number of support functions should be decentralised over time and that the locations chosen must reflect the structure in the NSS which is linked [url=http://http://www.irishspatialstrategy.ie/pdfs/Sec3a.pdf]here

[/URL]

I saw Minister Dermot Ahern interviewed on ‘The Political Show’ over the weekend. Asked about whether the decentralisation plan complemented the National Spatial Strategy he said that he thought it fitted in perfectly because it was all about ‘spreading development as widely as possible around the state’.

And there was me thinking spacial strategy was about avoiding that entirely and concentrating development in a few key areas to provide a counterweight to the development of Dublin…

Ah well, now that the probation officers aren’t going to Navan and FAS looks like turning down Birr, the number of locations may be about to decline somewhat from the original 53 that were proposed.

From the property section of today’s Indo…………

“Decentralisation has affect on house prices:

HOUSE prices have risen by 15% in the last 12 months in four key towns which are due to benefit from decentralisation within the next 18 months. The strongest demand has been for four and five bedroom homes in these areas.

According to a survey by Real Estate Alliance, these increases are due to the direct impact of decentralisation. The key towns affected include Carrick-on-Shannon, Mullingar, Athlone and Carlow.

Harry Sothern of Sothern Real Estate Alliance reports that a four bedroom house in Carlow, which sold for €260,000 in 2004, has risen by 23% to €320,000 at present. Over the same period a three bedroom semi has risen 18% to around €228,000.

In Athlone a three bedroom end of terrace house has risen by 21% in the last three years to €219,000. Local agent Healy Hynes of Hynes Real Estate Alliance says that most of this increase came in the last 12 months. He also points out that in the last two years, prices for four bedroom semis in Athlone rose 19.1% to €249,000.

Real Estate Alliance Chairman, Eddie Barrett says that the 1,500 new jobs being created in Carrick-on-Shannon is also increasing demand for new property in the region. He also called for a review of planning restrictions to ensure more rural sites became available for those civil servants who are moving to rural areas as a result of decentralisation.

It would appear that de centralisation is failing to provide ‘cheap housing’ for those being decentralised and that much of the money will end up in the hands of the site farming community in places that were not designated in the National Spatial strategy.

For anyone in any doubt the above comments from Mr Barrett make it very clear that no matter how little regulation is in force the IRDA type mindset will only be happy with a total free for all

Costs review means civil service exodus plan `is now doomed’
Irish Daily Mail
Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Ronald Quinlan
PLANS to continue moving 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin are on hold – amid increasing indications the entire scheme is close to collapse.

The original plan was to move 10,300 civil servants out of the capital to locations around the country by 2007. But now the buying of sites for the Government departments due to decentralise has been suspended while senior officials look again at the costs.

This effective freezing of the acquisition process – until the review of the programme by the Department of Finance is complete – has thrown the entire decentralisation programme into chaos.

Sources said last night that any department that has not already acquired a new site will have to wait while the `financial fallout’ of the scheme is assessed by officials.

The latest development comes just six weeks after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern admitted in an interview that the original plan had been too ambitious.

Mr Ahern said it was more likely the plan would not be completed until 2012.

But the decentralisation scheme took a further knock less than two weeks later when it emerged the Taoiseach had decided to rethink plans to relocate 2,300 workers employed by State agencies.

The original decentralisation plan, announced by former finance minister Charlie McCreevy, proposed moving the civil servants from Dublin to 53 locations around Ireland.

Since its inauspicious start, the initiative has failed to take off – with civil servants based in the capital showing worryingly low levels of interest towards the programme.

For example, it emerged earlier this year that just five of the 100 people working for the Valuation Office and nine of the Heath and Safety Authority’s staff of 110 want to leave Dublin.

Adding to the Government’s woes has been the dispropor- tionate number of low-ranking civil servants willing to move in comparison to senior officials.

And the latest revelation will place additional pressure on the Government as the prospect of next year’s general election looms larger on the political horizon.

Among the locations where properties have been identified for the scheme but not yet purchased or leased are: Carrickmacross; Clifden; Edenderry; Enniscorthy; Kilrush (lease); Loughrea; Mullingar; New Ross; Waterford; Wexford; Youghal; Claremorris; Drogheda; Limerick (lease), and Listowel (lease). These properties cannot now be purchased or leased for use by a Government department until the cost review has been completed. according to well placed sources at the Department of Finance.

And in a further twist to the saga, an official statement posted on the Government’s decentralisation website indicates no Dublin properties have been freed up by the anticipated exodus of civil servants. The statement reads: `Since it is too early in the process for any significant relocation of staff from Dublin, there has been no property disposed of in Dublin to date as a direct consequence of decentralisation’.

In a further note, the website states: `Ultimately, this will involve the disposal of surplus space. `However, no firm decisions have been taken at this stage as to which particular office buildings will be disposed of post decentralisation’.

To think a sensible plan could have decentralised 5,000 jobs by now to places people actually wanted to go as well as where offices were actually already in the pipeline such as Limerick Cork or Galway

Deranged ‘Big D’ vision cost us dear

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0907/1224278365345.html

The Department of the Environment’s new headquarters in Wexford, completed last June, cost €12 million, was another “design-and-build” contract for fully-fitted offices Department of Social Protection offices, Sligo, cost of €8.95 million. Photographs: Andy Mason The Office of Public Works headquarters in Trim was the most expensive project in the current programme, at €21.6 million.
Photograph: Gareth ByrneThe Office of Public Works headquarters in Trim was the most expensive project in the current programme, at €21.6 million.
Photograph: Gareth ByrneThe full price of ‘decentralisation’ has yet to be determined but the public interest in having an efficient administration is the real loser, writes FRANK McDONALD , Environment Editor

SIX YEARS ago, just after the Government’s “decentralisation” programme was announced, Tom Parlon – then minister of state at the Office of Public Works (OPW) – spoke at the unveiling of plans for an elegant 32-storey residential tower near Heuston Station and claimed that its quality would be reflected in new buildings throughout the State.

The tower, designed by Paul Keogh Architects, was never built. And despite the Government’s commitment in its 2002 policy on architecture that quality would be one of the key criteria for publicly-funded construction projects, most of the new “decentralised” offices are rather humdrum buildings – certainly not architecture with a capital A.

For Angela Rolfe, assistant principal architect at the OPW, the benchmark was the State’s first purpose-built departmental headquarters – the old department of industry and commerce in Kildare Street. Needing little alteration since it was built in 1939, it has stood the test of time primarily because of the high quality of materials and generosity of space.

But Rolfe could only deal with what was put before her and try to ensure that the standards set by the OPW for sustainability and accessibility were met by design teams, often acting for private sector developers. “We got some quite awful things. But those who put their minds to it and showed joined-up thinking tended to produce better buildings.”

Some were procured using traditional direct contracts, others were “design-and-build” packages giving developers the whip-hand, and still more formed parts of a “PPP bundle” – a batch of public-private partnerships, much favoured by the Department of Finance because of their value in taking capital projects off the Government’s balance sheet.

But PPPs can go horribly wrong too, especially if they’re in bundles. That’s what happened with plans to provide “decentralised” offices for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation in Carlow, the Department of Education and Science in Mullingar and the Department of Agriculture in Portlaoise – the latter two envisaged as headquarters.

They were all to be procured in a “PPP bundle” in partnership with Pierse Contracting, backed by Australian bankers Macquarie – until the financial package fell apart. Now, with only the Portlaoise project approved to proceed and the other two “subject to review”, lawyers are arguing whether the State is entitled to go ahead with Agriculture alone.

The net point is “whether we have rights to use the scheme as designed , or we don’t”, one OPW source said. Planning permission has already been granted for a large building to accommodate 595 staff, of whom 317 have already moved to Portlaoise and are working in three office blocks costing €530,640 in rent annually.

If the legal problem can’t be sorted out satisfactorily, the OPW would have to commission a new design and go back through the planning process. And when the vast Agriculture House in Kildare Street is eventually evacuated as planned, the prospects of getting a good price for it are not good, given the overhang of vacant office space in Dublin.

Other projects were more straightforward. In Athlone, for example, the OPW didn’t even have to buy a site for new Department of Education offices to accommodate 88 staff, because there was enough room for an extension to a building occupied by the same department. It cost €8.7 million, plus paying for a new roundabout to cater for the extra traffic.

THE SAME APPROACH was taken in Sligo, where new “decentralised” offices for 88 staff from the Department of Social Protection were the first to be built under the latest programme – for €8.95 million – on a site owned by the State. Furbo, west of Galway, also involved an extension of existing offices to house 13 civil servants. That cost €2 million.

The OPW’s own headquarters in Trim was the most expensive project in the current programme, at €21.6 million. Next in line was the Department of Defence headquarters in Newbridge, which cost €16.9 million, followed by the Irish Prison Service headquarters in Longford (€13 million) and offices for the Department of Agriculture in Clonakilty (€12.9 million).

The Department of the Environment’s new headquarters in Wexford, completed last June, cost €12 million, was another “design-and-build” contract for fully-fitted offices, with Scott Tallon Walker as architects. But main contractor Pierse had problems, sub-contractors walked off the site and the building was finished rather less well than the OPW had hoped.

Accommodating the embryonic Property Registration Authority in purpose-built offices in Roscommon cost nearly €9 million, though only 77 of an expected 230 staff have moved there, while €5.3 million was spent building a new office block in Buncrana, on the Inishowen peninsula, to house 102 staff from a section of the Department of Social Protection.

The long-term costs in maintaining so many buildings scattered around the country haven’t yet been calculated and were not taken into account at the time. This happened despite a history of problems with earlier “yellow-pack” buildings, procured using the design-and-build method; one block in Roscommon, for example, was said to be riddled with defects.

“All the Department of Finance care about is the capital cost. They’re not even asking questions about how much it costs to run these buildings,” one source said. And given the difficulties in getting developers to build a new office block as it was designed, right down to furniture layouts, this blind spot on maintenance is a store of future problems yet to unfold.

Indeed, most of the new buildings have yet to be formally handed over to the OPW. “We don’t have proper files, either because the electrical sub-contractor hasn’t been paid by the main contractor, so he hasn’t handed over certs and warranties, or the architect has gone away.” As a result, “final retentions” haven’t been paid on many of the new buildings.

Even the OPW’s insistence on such “sustainability features” as solar panels, wood pellet boilers, greywater recycling, integrated lighting and building management systems to regulate energy use could end up being problematic, because there are no maintenance staff on site, and few anyway with the expertise to deal with these new-fangled devices.

“No one thought about what would happen to the buildings afterwards. I mean, what happens on nice sunny day when all the windows start opening? Would you have someone fiddling with knobs in the plant room?” one architect asked. At the State’s new office block in Longford, staff interfered with automated windows that help to ventilate the building.

HAVING DEPARTMENTAL AND State agency offices all over the place incurs other costs, notably in mileage expenses for travelling long distances. On March 9th last, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) paid out €2,443 in expenses to attendees travelling to meetings at its new offices in Clonakilty from Dún Laoghaire, Kilmore Quay, Dingle, Carna, Creggan and Greencastle.

After a business development meeting in Clonakilty on February 4th last, BIM paid out €2,151 in travel and subsistence expenses to eight staff from its headquarters in Dún Laoghaire, where they are still located and 75 of BIM’s 95 staff are based. The original plan was to relocate them all in Clonakilty, but resistance from senior staff has stalled this move.

There were only three volunteers from BIM staff in Dún Laoghaire to relocate in Clonakilty and, as in many other cases, they had to be augmented by staff transferring from other agencies as part of the “decentralisation” process through the central applications facility. In addition, a number of BIM’s regional staff are now based there.

The new office block in Clonakilty is shared by BIM’s seafood development centre with the Department of Agriculture’s fisheries division and the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority.

“The full implementation of decentralisation of BIM to the new centre will be carried out on a phased basis,” a spokeswoman said, in response to queries from The Irish Times.

In the case of the OPW itself, a bus leaves Dublin Castle every weekday morning to bring staff who don’t have cars to work at its new headquarters in Trim – an hour-long journey that’s repeated at 5pm, when they’re dropped back to Dublin. There’s also a mid-morning run taking car-less staff to Dublin for meetings. The bus costs €2,300 per week.

So what was it all about? “The original plan was to weaken the Civil Service so politicians could interfere more – that was its real purpose,” one seasoned observer said.

Certainly, it put money in the pockets of builders, developers, landowners, architects, estate agents, publicans and shopkeepers in all of the towns where State offices have been built.

The public interest in having an efficient administration is the real loser. Presumably, this will be taken into account in the review now under way and most of the projects marked as “deferred” pending its outcome will end up being cancelled by the Government – if only to stem the colossal waste of public funds on Charlie McCreevy’s deranged vision of the “Big D”.

---

Series concluded

The decentralisation table in yesterday’s edition incorrectly identified the Department of Enterprise as occupants of a new building in Wexford. It was built for the Department of the Environment

Where does one start; if you look at the opinions in this thread from 2003 when this was first mooted it was obvious that the entire built environment profession was opposed to this policy and articulated same clearly. Yet here we are 7 years later with an article that is depressing in its ability to list a string of errors that are by any stretch of the imagination breathtaking.

Sadly those that made the decisions retain power or lucrative follow on roles from their period of collosal governmental ineptitude.

@PVC King wrote:

Where does one start; …………….

Sadly those that made the decisions retain power or lucrative follow on roles from their period of collosal governmental ineptitude.

And where does Mr. Parlon work now?
K.

lets look at his career

Sector 1 Agriculture
Sector 2 Decentralisation/frittering away taxpayers cash
Sector 3 Construction

Amazing Wiki doesn’t cover his IFA days but a generous soul nonetheless

You would not follow the sectors he has chosen for career at various times