New evidence of disquiet at the Government's decentralisation plan is revealed in a confidential set of minutes which show that high-ranking civil servants have expressed "considerable concern" at the consequences of the initiative.
The minutes reveal that numerous potential problems were envisaged at a meeting of the liaison officers who will communicate details of the Government plan to thousands of their colleagues.
"Many issues/potential problems were raised at the meeting which will be brought to the attention of the implementation committee," the minutes said.
"There was considerable concern expressed in regard to the issues that will arise from decentralising the agencies, for example, loss of expertise, staff on contracts, status etc," they added.
The document also shows that the Office of Public Works had received an "avalanche" of submissions from property owners responding to a call for expressions of interest in the towns and cities to be covered in the strategy. This would created a "huge amount of work" for staff at the OPW.
The minutes recorded that the chairman of the group of liaison officers, Mr Michael Errity, "was very clear that the numbers to decentralise must be met and where the numbers are less than in the Government decision, the shortfall must be made up somehow".
But with surveys consistently showing that large numbers of officials have shown no interest in the plan, there was no mention of any specific action that might be taken to make up the shortfall.
The meeting took place on January 19th, three days after the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, suggested the Government might have to adopt "a carrot approach to get over the final hurdle" to meet the target of decentralising some 10,000 civil servants over the next three years.
Despite the obligation on several Government Departments to move their entire operations outside Dublin, the meeting heard that the Government was against staff surveys.
"The official attitude is that no useful purpose would be served by conducting a survey at this stage with so many questions unanswered - certainly not before the implementation plan is produced at the end of March."
In addition, concerns were raised "as to the fate of those choosing to remain in Dublin" after the Departments were moved from the capital.
A Department of Finance spokesman declined to comment on the document. The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, has insisted in the past week that the decentralisation targets will be met and that the plan will not be changed.
