Still no decision on site at Farnham
A near 11-acre site, once intended to rehome 380 decentralised civil servants in the mid-2000s, remains in State hands with no indication as to whether it will be used or sold.
In a statement to The Anglo-Celt, the Office of Public Works rowed back on remarks towards the end of 2020, that if “no alternative State requirement” was identified, the site “may be disposed” of by public auction in 2021.
The Brady family sold the site at Farnham Road in 2006 for €2.9m to facilitate the Cavan leg of the Government’s decentralisation plan to relocate over 10,000 civil and public service jobs to 53 locations nationwide.
In its latest statement, the OPW repeated the phrase “if no State requirement is identified”.
However, instead of giving a specific timeframe, the spokesperson now says that in alternative circumstances the site “may be considered” for disposal by public auction “at a future date”.
When quizzed further, they stated that the future of the site is “continually under review” in line with the OPW’s disposal policy, which they explain is to “consider alternative State use in advance of a disposal on the open market at an appropriate time”.
Concerning the Farnham Road site, the OPW’s Annual Report 2006 states “expressions of interest” from contractors were sought, and the ambition was to have new offices built by 2009 at the latest.
Ultimately, only an “advance” party of staff from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources arrived in Cavan as part of the much vaunted 2003 Decentralisation Programme.
A preliminary survey of staff preferences conducted in January 2004 was overwhelmingly negative towards the idea of moving to the Breffni county.
It saw 83.96% (356) of 424 staff asked replied steadfastly ‘No’, with only 6.84% (29) replying ‘Yes’, less even than the 32 (7.55%) still undecided. Seven (1.65%) returned the form incomplete.
To the option of another location, not Cavan, more than half (51.9%) still replied ‘No’, with less than a third of those surveyed open to another location.
Twelve months on, the Commission for Public Service Appointments had received 176 expressions of interest for the proposed posts in Cavan, including requests for inter-departmental transfers.
By 2010, 57 staff had moved from Dublin to Cavan, or 15% of the 378 initially envisaged.
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