The Government is to speed up efforts to end SIPTU's boycott of the decentralisation programme, following growing concern that the plan to transfer 10,000 civil and public servants is running into major difficulties.
Just 7.5 per cent of civil servants have applied to move in their current posting with their Department, while the number of officials working in State agencies willing to move in their current jobs is even smaller. The outcome means that Government Departments could be forced to train up hundreds of new officials before being able to operate in their new locations: "Can you imagine that chaos that that will cause," warned one senior official last night.
Both SIPTU and Amicus have boycotted the Central Applications Facility, which is handling transfer applications, though just 2 per cent of officials represented by IMPACT, which is not boycotting the system, applied. Senior officials in the Department of Finance, which is increasingly worried about the developments, have already discussed measures to boost applications in advance of the early September deadline.
This could include changing legislation that would allow State agency officials full rights to transfer to Government Departments at their existing grade, and with all other employment benefits intact.
"There are particular difficulties here and there have been discussions on this," a Department of Finance spokesman told The Irish Times in response to questions yesterday afternoon.
Under the CAF, applications by civil servants to transfer within Departments are treated as "an application to move", but applications to move to, and from the Civil Service to the public service are deemed to be "expressions of interest".
Under agreements with the trade unions, the Department of Finance has so far accepted that transfers between the two groups of staff - which would be deeply unpopular within the Civil Service - would require agreement. Meanwhile, the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants has warned that the decentralisation programme will have a "catastrophic" effect on the Civil Service in Dublin and elsewhere.
In a letter to branch secretaries, the association's general secretary, Mr Sean O'Riordan said only 36 principal officers and 158 assistant principal officers are ready to move to fill 219 and 543 vacancies respectively. Fine Gael TD Mr Richard Bruton said the Government's own figures make clear that State bodies will suffer a "catastrophic loss of experience" if the decentralisation plan is not changed urgently.
Organisations will be "dismantled entirely" and reconstructed: "You can't play God like this without proper pre-planning. The figures are a massive rejection of the Government's strategy," said Mr Bruton.
The situation facing the Probation and Welfare Service highlights the problems. Due to transfer to Navan, the service has 102 vacancies: 80 trained probation officers and 22 clerical staff. Just one person from the service's existing Dublin-based staff has applied to move, though it is not known whether the application is from a probation officer or a clerical worker.
However, the Government's figures, released on Thursday afternoon under extraordinary circumstances by the Department of Finance, show that 99 people have applied to move to the new Navan office. "It looks good until you realise that you have 99 clerical officers looking for 22 jobs and no probation officers," IMPACT official, Mr Phil Nolan said last night.
