But this rare show of generosity from the Department of Finance, which was outlined to nine public sector unions last week, is limited to Dublin-based public servants who have refused to make the move down the country.

Of the 10,000 public servants who have been earmarked to move to over 50 locations outside the capital, around 4,500 have decided to stay put. But as their jobs will have moved without them, they will have to be found jobs with those government departments who are not making the move.

A special central applications facility has been set up to handle the transfers of public servants from department to department within Dublin. But applications have been painfully slow as public servants feared they would lose a wide range of additional allowances and overtime payments after moving into the new job.

These allowances range from 6,145 per year for public servants working in the joint investigation unit in social, and family affairs to 10,829 for customs and excise officials working in Revenue's investigation branch. IT staff get weekend on-call allowances of up 161 while a large number of public servants get overtime. All allowances and extra payments are paid on top of a servant's salary.

Now in an effort to unblock the logjam, the Department of Finance has now offered to pay twice the annual loss to those public servants who lose such allowances when transferring to another department.

"It is possible that uncertainty about loss of earnings may have deterred people from moving under the Dublin arrangements, " the department told the unions.

But the department said no compensation will be paid to civil servants who are paid an extra 20,319 per year for acting as private secretary to a minister.

But in a bid to rein in a compensation bill that could run into millions, the department stressed that the two years compensation will not be paid to staff who agree to move out of the capital.

People will not retain allowances or other additions to pay which related to performances of particular duties, liability for certain types of work etc, unless the duties/liabilities also apply in the new assignment, warned the department.

This is the second time the department has had to pay out compensation to oil the decentralisation machinery despite it stating at the outset that public servants would not be compensated for making what is a voluntary move out of the capital.

Last year, it finally agreed to pay rural-based public servants a training allowance when they have to travel up to Dublin to be trained in on their new decentralised job.

The allowance provides for a lump sum allowance of 5,000 to cover training in Dublin for 14 weeks with 300 for each week beyond 14 weeks.