Friends' Work

// Sunday Times, February 25, 2001

EUROCRATS who are about to be moved to purpose-built offices in a remote part of Co Meath are fleeing back to Brussels instead. At least 25 European commission staff due to move next year to the 30m (IR£23.6m) building at Grange, 26 miles outside Dublin, have already left the country and more are expected to follow.

From the Sunday Times, February 25, 2001


EUROCRATS who are about to be moved to purpose-built offices in a remote part of Co Meath are fleeing back to Brussels instead. At least 25 European commission staff due to move next year to the 30m (IR£23.6m) building at Grange, 26 miles outside Dublin, have already left the country and more are expected to follow.


Staff at the commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) are unhappy with the quality of transport - the nearest town, Trim, is five miles away - water and education at their new offices in the Meath countryside, and are in talks with the Irish government about improving facilities. The 160 officials also want more money from the commission to compensate them for moving from Dublin.


Andre Evers, chairman of the FVO's staff association, said: "We have lost 25 colleagues over the past two years and there are rumours that others could leave. Grange is clearly a factor. People feel that it is remote, with few possibilities. It is difficult to be away from a big city. What makes it worse are the faults there."


Of most concern to staff is that local water was found to be polluted with animal waste between 1994 and 1998. The European commission is taking legal action against the Irish government over the poor quality of group water schemes, including the one at Kiltale which will service the Grange office. Irish authorities insist that no pollution has been found there in the last eight tests, but Brussels and the FVO staff want to see the proof.


The FVO office was given to Ireland in 1993 as part of an EU decentralisation programme. As taoiseach in 1996, John Bruton decided that the office should be located in his Meath constituency. The FVO staff, more than half of them non-Irish, moved to Clare Street in Dublin, then Blackrock and are now in Clonskeagh. About 160 of them will move to Grange next spring.


Rural unrest: EU officials are fleeing to Brussels rather than moving to new offices being built in a remote part of Meath

Photograph: Kim Haughton

Patricia McKenna, the Green MEP for Dublin, said the move was damaging Ireland's image and could cause the whole decentralisation process to be reversed, with eurocrats insisting on working from Brussels.


"There are no proper facilities in Grange and it is unfair to the staff," said McKenna. "What Bruton did was completely unacceptable. This should not go ahead."


A joint working group of staff, the commission and the Irish government is addressing eurocrats' concerns. The Office of Public Works (OPW) says it has met every staff requirement in the Grange; installing a gym, an outdoor play area for children, a running track, showers and a restaurant. The OPW has also applied for planning permission for a creche.


No progress has been made on improving transport links, a key staff demand. FVO staff fly all over the world and already complain about the lack of direct flights from Dublin.