The Department of Finance has proposed that a high-level group should be established to consider the implications of a recent Labour Court ruling which effectively prohibited State agencies from making promotions conditional on staff being prepared to move out of Dublin.
It is understood that the Department of Finance has proposed the new group, which would include civil servants and trade union representatives, in correspondence to the Irish Congress of Trade Union (Ictu).
The department's proposal is likely to be considered by Ictu in the coming weeks.
At the end of August the Labour Court ruled, in a case that involved the State training agency Fás, that staff applying for promotions had the right to be judged on suitability and merit alone.
Labour Court chairman Kevin Duffy said that if staff exercised their right not to move to the new Fás headquarters in Birr, Co Offaly, they would be denied access to promotions to which they could normally aspire.
He said that given the importance of career progression for those involved, such a state of affairs would be incompatible with any reasonable notion of voluntarism.
It is understood that Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has also written to the trade union Impact rejecting that the Labour Court ruling had any effect on technical and professional grades in the Civil Service.
These groups have maintained that because of the specialist nature of their work they could not readily transfer to other departments like other civil servants.
In a written parliamentary answer last week, Mr Cowen said that the intention to relocate 30 State agencies outside of Dublin represented just over 20 per cent of the Government's overall decentralisation programme.
"The Government has always recognised that this aspect of the programme presents different challenges from that of the Civil Service. I remain confident that through dialogue and negotiation, progress can be advanced," he said.
He said that in relation to the State bodies generally, it was now a matter, in the first instance, for each of them, together with their parent department, to manage their approach to implementation taking account of the implications of the Labour Court recommendation.
"My Department has written to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to establish how progress can be made on this aspect of the Labour Court recommendation".
"I have also made it clear that recruitment of staff to Fás headquarters and to other State agencies for new decentralised locations will continue in line with the Government's policy on decentralisation.
"Already this policy has assisted in approximately 25 per cent of staff now being in place for the new locations across the State agencies", the Minister said.
