Kilkenny is to be directly affected by a number of public sector cuts coming down the line in coming months.
Details of the Public Service Reform document were published yesterday afternoon by the Government, which outlined that decentralisation projects that had been promised for County Kilkenny would now not go ahead. The Government is also planning to cut public service staff numbers from just under 300,000 to 282, 500 from the beginning of 2011 to 2015.
Kilkenny is one of 32 towns that are to be affected by the decision taken on decentralisation which includes 40 projects. Another 32 projects where accommodation is already in place or almost complete, will still go ahead.
The Government confirmed yesterday that it has shelved its original plans to decentralise the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government and the Arts Council to Kilkenny city.
There had been plans for 62 employees to decentralise to Kilkenny city in the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government while an additional 49 were due to move to Kilkenny with the Arts Council. There were also plans to decentralise the Health and Safety Authority to Thomastown however, the future of these plans was still unclear at the time of going to press.
Speaking to the Kilkenny Advertiser in the wake of yesterday’s report on the public service, local deputy John Paul Phelan said that the cancellation of the plans for the decentralisation of the Arts Council were disappointing.
“The news that the decentralisation of certain agencies including the Arts Council has been abandoned is indeed disappointing but I suppose at a time like this when people have less than ever before, we cannot ask tax payers for anything more than what is necessary and this move is not considered imperative in the broader scheme of things. It would require a large sum of money to undertake and we simply don’t have it right now.”
He added that maybe relocating the agencies is something that could be revisited in the future.
However, Deputy Phelan was less downcast about the prospect of keeping the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government in Dublin.
“I don’t believe the movement of a whole department is realistic. It would have been damaging to the working of the department if some people had been in Wexford, some in Kilkenny and some in Dublin. It just wouldn’t work and I don’t believe that this was ever going to happen.
Meanwhile speaking yesterday after the publication of the document, Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform Brendan Howlin said the job cuts in the public sector would be achieved without any compulsory redundancies. However he would not rule out that the cuts would not affect front-line services.
He said he would not pretend that the reform agenda would not cause problems, but said that his department would deal with issues as they arise.
