Over 30 per cent of Department of Justice posts to be decentralised will have moved by mid-2007, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said yesterday.
Speaking at the official opening of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, decentralised to Portarlington, Co Laois, Mr McDowell said almost 300 staff in the sector would have moved out of Dublin by the middle of next year.
Some 900 posts from 12 agencies under the control of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform will move or have already moved to seven different locations, including the Land Registry, which recently opened in Roscommon.
A total of 22 of the 23 staff employed in the new data protection office have been retrained from other areas within the Civil Service.
The Minister said 800 applications had been received for the relocated posts and that some projects were ahead of target.
"Ten days ago we placed the contract for the fit-out of the new Irish Prison Service, which will be ready for occupation in Longford in the spring of 2007, bringing over 140 jobs to the town," he said.
"We are also planning to open offices in Navan in the early part of 2007 to accommodate staff from the Garda Human Resources Unit, the Property Regulatory Authority and the Probation Service and also in Roscrea, to cater for an advance move from the Equality Authority."
He said he was pleased the 23 staff in the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner were relocated in advance of the original target date of 2008. "I would like to commend all the former staff in the Dublin office on the professionalism and dedication which they have shown during the changeover period."
