SIXTY EMPLOYEES of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform have been transferred to Tipperary town under the Government's decentralisation programme.
Only a tiny fraction of the staff, appointed to the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS), are being transferred from Dublin.
The Irish Times has learned that most of the jobs in the Tipperary offices have been filled by civil servants moving from other provincial offices, particularly those in Limerick. Out of 55 staff currently based in Tipperary, just two transferred from the capital.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and local TD and Minister of State Martin Mansergh opened the new INIS offices in the town yesterday.The civil servants will work in a leased office building until permanent accommodation is built. It is expected that about 180 staff will be based in Tipperary by the end of 2010.
Mr Ahern said yesterday that "decentralisation will continue as quickly as resources permit", despite the Government's announcement last week of a rethink on the policy following a decline in exchequer returns.
Under the decentralisation plan, some 900 positions in the Department of Justice and its various agencies were scheduled to move from Dublin to various provincial centres by 2010. To date over 500 posts have been decentralised to seven locations around the country, the department said.
At the ceremony, Dr Mansergh said: "At the risk of shocking some of our metropolitan commentators, who are quite determined not to find a good word to say about it, decentralisation is part of the process of redistributing wealth within this country, and ensuring that the entire resources of this country are not swallowed up meeting the needs of an overcrowded greater Dublin area."