Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

One would nearly want a legal team to absorb all that, whoever laboured long and hard over it.

The report from the Taoiseach's Department on the introduction of regulatory impact analysis or RIA, as it is called, states that a so-called screening RIA should apply to all primary legislation which proposes changes to the regulatory framework. Did the Government consider, for example, an RIA in respect of the social welfare Bill which is to regulate pension fund administrators? I do not say whether I agree or disagree with it, but did the Government consider an RIA in that case because it introduces a change in the regulatory framework?

The same report stated that a full-scale regulatory impact assessment involving a qualified cost-benefit analysis would have to be produced and published in a case where there was significant Exchequer expenditure and that the Department of the Taoiseach would be the monitoring Department for that, and for all other Departments, to ensure that this was done to an adequate standard. Why was a full RIA not published in the case of the Carbon Fund Act 2007, which involved expenditure of €207 million on carbon credits, in view of the fact that it related to significant Exchequer expenditure? Why did the Department consider it sufficient to say in that case in costing other options to meet Kyoto commitments, which are a big issue with the Government, such as domestic emissions cuts, that these were impossible to calculate? Why, therefore, was a full RIA not requested and published in that case of significant Exchequer expenditure?

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