Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As a result of a meeting with the regulators and the Competition Authority, a liaison group is in place to examine all these aspects. Arrangements exist under the regulations to review individual regulatory procedures in the various sectors once every five years. In the meantime, the liaison group is looking at that issue as well.

The better regulation unit in the Department of the Taoiseach exists to facilitate ensuring there is sufficient training and sufficient initiatives in place to enable the people in the service to take on board the requirements that are now set out, for example, in developing proper regulatory impact analyses in respect of legislative decisions and ensuring proper analysis is undertaken by people competent in this area. More than 320 individual public servants from across Departments have been involved in that process as part of training people to do this work sufficiently well.

As the Deputy notes, a group including business and trade union representatives deals with the wider EU project of identifying and reducing administrative burdens on business by 25% over the course of the period involved. This work is ongoing and is on track, I understand.

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