Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an issue that is of concern to many member states. The Commission will produce a document in March on the issue of better regulation and exemptions for small businesses. I am aware of the French system. The issue for each member state will be to try and see whether it can adapt its regulations to this. We will publish a companies Bill shortly through which we will reduce the audit requirements for companies with fewer than 50 employees. We need to look at each area to see what can be done. In some areas, such as health and safety, it would be very hard to exempt companies with fewer than 50 employees for fear of a genuine risk to life and limb. The principle is well accepted and we await the Commission's document to see how it will seek to implement this.

There are implications for us also. We have just completed an audit of regulations for retail business, which will be of interest to the Senator. This was an audit of licences generally and we are now looking to see what scope there is to simplify those codes here and to get collective application rather than having different enforcements with different requirements. Regulation is a huge issue. The Commission is to try to bring forward a successor to the 25% administration burden cut, which is due to be completed this year. Therefore, there will be debate on what should replace that and there are different views from the different member states.

One of the views being strongly advocated by the United Kingdom is the one-for-one notion. The United Kingdom has a very elaborate system. A cabinet committee there does a detailed evaluation of the regulatory burden from each regulation and every time a new regulation is introduced, it must replace one of an equivalent compliance burden. That system has had mixed success, but it is the Rolls Royce of systems in terms of putting a requirement on the system to respond. However, it is quite intensive in terms of resources. We considered doing the same, but the sheer intensity of creating an evaluation of how much regulation exists and achieving a one-for-one exchange would be a substantial task. From where we stand today, it would be a substantial task to get to a place where we could implement a one-for-one regime. While it is a very attractive approach, the practicality of doing it is challenging in the current environment.

I have just been reminded that the enforcement of the services directive will see a levelling of the playing pitch. Countries transpose obligations in different ways and if they act the maggot to some degree in terms of transposition, the enforcement of the directive will help catch up on protective measure requirements that are currently applied evenly in some sectors. This may help open up barriers and make trade easier.