Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 to 8, inclusive, together.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to instigate a review of the entire economic regulatory environment. This review will be designed to ensure that the existing regulatory regime is operating efficiently, balancing the needs of users with the requirements of producers and is not imposing excessive costs on the economy.

An interdepartmental group, chaired by my Department, has been tasked with advancing work in this area. Arising from the group's recommendations, the Government has agreed to establish an Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs whose remit will include the scrutiny of the efficiency and effectiveness of regulators in key economic sectors such as energy, communications, transport, health and safety and financial services. As Deputies will be aware, the committee will be chaired by Deputy Michael Moynihan.

In the medium term, the interdepartmental group has been tasked by Government with examining a range of legislative provisions to enhance accountability and the transparency of regulators' operations. These measures will strengthen oversight of regulators by the new Oireachtas committee. The Government believes that we need stronger international data and benchmarks in order to assess the comparative efficiency and effectiveness of Irish regulators. Terms of reference for such an international study are currently being finalised by the interdepartmental group.

The Davidson report in Britain examined the transposition of EU legislation in the UK by the British Government. While much concern is expressed about the over-implementation of EU legislation — or "gold plating" as it is often called — a key finding of the Davidson report was that these concerns are greatly exaggerated and, in practice, there was very little evidence of gold plating to be found in the UK.

With regard to Ireland, my Department commissioned the ESRI to conduct a survey of business attitudes to regulation which was published earlier this year. This study examined in detail the responses of more than 800 Irish companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises. The study found that regulation ranks behind concerns over labour costs and increased competition in terms of challenges faced by business, but ahead of concerns over infrastructure and staffing issues. In general, firms feel that the overall amount of regulation is about right. This finding is in line with the PricewaterhouseCoopers CEO Pulse Survey 2007, which found that on a worldwide stage, 73% of CEOs see regulation as the main potential barrier to growth compared with the Irish figure of only 3%.

It is important that in examining the burdens imposed by regulation, we do not diminish the protections for citizens and workers that have been put in place. Nevertheless, it is right to see whether there are unnecessary burdens and red tape that could be eliminated without impinging on the core purpose of regulation. With this in mind, I have tasked my colleague, Deputy Michéal Martin, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment with driving our national programme of reducing unnecessary administrative burdens. Deputy Martin has appointed a high level group of officials and representatives of business and trade unions, to look at ways of reducing unnecessary burdens in five priority areas identified by Irish business as the most burdensome.

These are taxation, health and safety, environment law, statistical returns and employment and company law. This is in line with the commitment in the Agreed Programme for Government to ensure direct feedback from business on regulatory burdens. The work of this group will inform Ireland's approach to meeting the commitment contained in the spring European Council conclusions to put in place a national programme to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens.

Regarding the timely transposition of EU legislation into Irish law, my Department has a monitoring role through the interdepartmental co-ordinating committee on European affairs which is chaired by the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Roche. The transposition of EU directives is a standing item in the work programme of the committee.

Departments are required to provide regular updates on directives applicable to their areas of responsibility. The updates assist in the co-ordination and monitoring of the transposition of all EU directives, including those counted towards the European Commission's Internal Market scoreboard. The Commission has set a 1% transposition deficit target for the Internal Market scoreboard for 2009.

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