Irish government's secret decentralisation plans revealed under FOI

According to the Sunday Times, a Department of Finance memo that the Irish government has tried to keep secret for more than two years reveals that the cabinet ignored the advice of civil servants in drawing up decentralisation plans in 2003.

Officials recommended that just 6,000 civil and public servants would move no further west than a line between Dungarvan and Monaghan, and that no entire department be shifted out of Dublin.

The details, revealed in a 2003 memo released last week under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the cabinet ignored warnings from officials and proceeded for political reasons with a much more ambitious plan.

Dublin plan warnings ignored (Sunday Times - Ireland, 12 March 2006)

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