Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Yes. On that issue, one will never stop a company from running into difficulties. One will encounter more of that given the huge range of operators in the market. There will be change and rationalisation; some will pull out of the market, while others will expand and there will also be takeovers. This will not stop.

The study of this has moved on and we have looked at the detail. A study by either the Economic and Social Research Institute or the National Economic and Social Council on the area of regulations will come out shortly. This is a Europe-wide issue. We have done a considerable amount of work over the past five years, but the EU has demanded that for business regulation the burden imposed on businesses should be reduced by 25% for administrative purposes and for EU legislation. An examination across Departments all over Europe is taking place to seek to reduce the burdens that arise from EU legislation. There is a demand that we should try to do this in our own countries as well, which is what we have been doing since 2001. Our view is that the Commission should focus on the 25% target at EU level before it considers how we can deal with reducing the burdens here. Germany is doing a considerable job on this at the moment. I believe it has 120 statisticians going through all its legislation.

We have carried out a similar exercise here. The small unit in my Department is driving the change and reform. I have recently gone through the details of much of this with the unit. There are too many regulatory bodies and regulations. We have 130 different regulators, including local authorities. It is a very cumbersome area. There is a job to try to streamline this. It is the first time the unit has gone through all our Acts, legislation and agencies and identified the regulations. It has done a very good job in putting it all together and has consulted with business on this.

There is much that could be done in respect of old legislation. Every new Act must go through a regulatory impact analysis. In reply to Deputy Kenny's question, there are communications between the regulatory impact analysis and various agents and regulatory bodies. In respect of existing Acts of the Oireachtas, there are far too many bodies. Every year, we add to this by passing Acts. The area needs to be streamlined. The unit in my Department that is doing this is small, but it is doing a good job in trying to narrow down the amount of regulation and bring it together. We will not drop anything that is useful but we should at least remove some of the burdens from people. Much work remains to be done in this area. Perhaps it is easier with major areas such as gas and energy in general because there is much focus on them currently and CER has its own offices and staff.

A great deal of legislation and regulation is involved in some of the other areas and this is proving to be hugely cumbersome. We have a clear picture of what remains to be done. Some good work has been done in regard to the proposed pharmacies' legislation that is going through the Houses currently. A report is currently being carried out on solicitors. Reports have outlined action that has been taken across a range of bodies. They provide an indication of the amount of regulatory issues involved and we hope to dispose of many of them. When we bring forward new legislation, we should be slow to build up these things if they are unnecessary. It is ridiculous that we have 120 regulatory bodies.

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