Civil servants in an office in Ballina, Co Mayo, have been "twiddling their thumbs" for the past 17 months because of a lack of work for them to do, a union conference was told yesterday.
The staff concerned are employed in the Department of the Environment's housing section, which was decentralised to Ballina about a decade ago, delegates to the Public Service Executive Union annual conference were told.
However, since the abolition of the first-time buyers grant in November 2002, a large proportion of the staff's workload had been removed, delegates were told.
Mr Tommy Kierans of the union's environment, heritage and local government branch said management had promised that "adequate and meaningful work" would be provided to replace the previous duties.
More than a year on, however, no replacement work had yet been allocated.
The matter should be addressed, he said, before the Government proceeded with its planned wider decentralisation programme.
The union did not want a situation where decentralisation went ahead while members in Ballina who were anxious to work were left "twiddling their thumbs".
The state of uncertainty they had been left in had an impact on morale and was not fair to the staff concerned.
However, a spokesman for the Department of the Environment insisted that despite the abolition of the grants scheme 17 months ago, there had been continued administrative work involved.
Staff had had to deal with a late surge of applications, and payments under the scheme had only ended earlier this month.
In addition, staff in the unit concerned had responsibilities other than administering the grants scheme, he said.
The organisation of the Department's various units and the workloads involved was under constant review.
Now that the grants scheme had finally concluded, the Department would consider allocating new blocks of work to the housing section or redeployment of staff to other units in Ballina.
The Department spokesman said there were currently 30 people employed in the housing section.
The two-day union conference concluded yesterday. In a debate on the national pay talks due to begin shortly, delegates passed a motion calling on the union to seek pay increases that would at least match inflation over the 18 months of the projected agreement.
The motion also called for progress to be made towards the establishment of a further benchmarking exercise for public-sector staff "at a time which would be appropriate, having regard to developments on pay elsewhere in the economy".
Public servants received pay increases averaging 8.9 per cent in the previous benchmarking exercise, which ended in 2002.
