Serious concerns about the Government's decentralisation programme among middle-ranking civil and public servants are to be aired at a union conference today.
More than 30 motions on the issue have been tabled for the Public Service Executive Union annual conference, which opens this afternoon in Tralee.
Delegates will also debate a proposal that the PSEU open merger talks with two other public sector unions, the CPSU and IMPACT.
Decentralisation, however, is set to be the dominant theme of the two-day conference.
The union has officially adopted a policy of being "neither for nor against decentralisation, as such", but members have a range of concerns.
The Government plans to move more than 10,000 civil and public servants from Dublin within three years.
The PSEU general secretary, Mr Dan Murphy, has previously said the programme would be impossible to achieve in the timeframe envisaged.
He also dismissed as a "nonsense" the plan to move entire agencies from Dublin.
For example, he said, the plan to move both the Equality Authority and Equality Tribunal to Roscrea, Co Tipperary, was a "cynical political exercise" which had more to do with getting a councillor elected in Roscrea than any attempt to improve services to the public.
This view is echoed in a motion for the Tralee conference tabled by the union's health-and-children branch.
It calls on the union to oppose the "politicisation of the decentralisation process, which is currently using 10,000 civil servants as a tool to win favour in advance of the local elections".
Several motions are highly critical of the perceived lack of consultation with unions prior to the programme being announced in the budget in December.
Others express concern about a range of issues, including the effect of the programme on career prospects and the need to ensure all transfers are voluntary.
The PSEU is the first of the three unions planning merger talks to have the matter aired at a delegate conference.
Motions authorising the PSEU, which represents executive officers and higher executives in the civil service, to open talks with the CPSU and IMPACT are to be debated tomorrow afternoon.
