Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 11: To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the implementation of the recommendation of the OECD report on regulatory reform; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43890/06]

Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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Question 12: To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the implementation of the recommendations of the OECD report on regulatory reform; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6327/07]

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 and 12 together.

Significant progress has been made since the publication of the 2001 OECD report, Regulatory Reform in Ireland. The focus of our efforts in progressing regulatory reform is now on implementing the Government White Paper, Regulating Better, which was published in January 2004 in response to the OECD's report.

The White Paper sets out six core principles that must be reflected in how we design, implement and review legislation and regulation. Some of the key areas outlined in the OECD report relate to specific sectoral issues and the appropriate Ministers with responsibility for those sectoral areas report directly to the House on progressing those OECD recommendations.

The better regulation group was established in 2004 to progress the commitments in the White Paper and to oversee the implementation of the action plan, which forms part of the White Paper. The group met on five occasions in 2006 and presented a detailed report to Government at its meeting on 13 February on its progress in implementing the commitments in the White Paper. The better regulation group has played a leading role in overseeing the introduction of regulatory impact analysis across Departments and Government offices. Officials are now routinely applying regulatory impact analysis, RIA, to regulatory proposals in advance of their submission to Government. The better regulation unit of my Department provides practical support for officials conducting regulatory impact analyses.

Concrete examples of this support include a dedicated RIA training course, the RIA guidelines, the guidelines on consultation for public sector bodies and the recently established RIA network. Alongside this work, the better regulation group has steered and focused work in the area of statute law revision. The Statute Law Revision Bill 2007, published on 1 February, provides for the repeal of more than 3,000 obsolete Acts that predate the foundation of the State. Two comprehensive public consultation processes preceded the drafting of the text of the Bill. The Bill completed all stages in the Seanad on 14 February and is listed for Second Stage in this House tomorrow. It is envisaged that the Bill will be enacted in the lifetime of the current Dáil. The removal of these ancient Acts from our Statute Book will undoubtedly assist in clarifying the legislation that remains in force.

To identify priorities for improving the regulatory environment for business, the better regulation group has also commissioned the Economic and Social Research Institute to conduct a survey of business attitudes to regulation. This comprehensive survey of more than 800 companies, including SMEs, focuses on red tape and on the impacts of regulation on business more broadly, such as the extent to which regulation facilitates, or is a barrier to, economic growth and the competitiveness of business. I intend to publish the results of this survey shortly.

In addition to the initiatives already mentioned, the better regulation group also oversees the work of a number of subgroups, including the subgroup on regulatory appeals and the subgroup on electronic statutory instruments.

The subgroup on regulatory appeals has been charged with progressing commitments in the White Paper in relation to developing improved approaches to appealing the decisions of the major economic and sectoral regulatory bodies. Given the complex nature of the issues involved in appeals, the Government decided, in July 2006, to initiate a broad public consultation process on the issue, with advertisements placed in the national media.

As part of this consultation process, the subgroup published a consultation paper on regulatory appeals and a successful consultation seminar was organised by my Department in September 2006 to generate debate on the issue and encourage interested parties to respond to the consultation paper. The seminar presented legal, international and business experience in relation to appeals and speakers at the seminar included the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the Attorney General.

Thirty five submissions have been received to date in my Department in response to the consultation paper on regulatory appeals. The better regulation group is currently in the process of reviewing the submissions received and will publish a synthesis document in the first quarter of this year. These submissions will inform proposals on appeals which the better regulation group will prepare for consideration by the Government.

The subgroup on electronic statutory instruments is looking at improving electronic accessibility to statutory instruments. Revised procedures for the production of statutory instruments have been developed and are currently being piloted across Departments and offices.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The 2001 report refers to bottlenecks in the physical infrastructure of housing, transport and other areas. Will the Taoiseach comment on how many of the OECD's conclusions and policy options have been dealt with since then? I note in the executive summary of the 2006-07 global competitiveness report that Ireland is ranked at 31. In respect of higher education and training, Ireland is ranked at 16, which means a slippage in terms of our competitiveness as against countries such as Finland, Norway and Sweden which have held the top three places in these areas for a long time.

Will the Taoiseach comment on reform of the energy market in view of the decision to grant the ESB authority to build a new power plant? Will he also comment on the implementation of a North-South interconnector? This was agreed by Government a long time ago but not a single pylon has gone into the ground.

Rory O'Hanlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Ceann Comhairle)
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Some of those questions might be more appropriate to the line Minister.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach will also be aware that 40,000 Smart Telecom customers had their service disconnected last year. Does he agree that, in respect of the regulatory impact of such an occurrence, there is a clear need to tighten up the regulations which would require Eircom to give notice to ComReg who, in turn, could warn customers of a breakdown in the service?

Rory O'Hanlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Ceann Comhairle)
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These questions relate to the regulator and would be more appropriate to the line Minister.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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My question is about the implementation of the recommendation of the OECD report on regulatory reform.

Rory O'Hanlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Ceann Comhairle)
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Yes, but individual questions for line Ministers should be addressed to the line Minister. The Deputy may ask a broad general question.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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This is a broad general question about telecommunications regulation. Some 40,000 customers on a particular scheme had their service disconnected last year. Does the Taoiseach consider there should be a tightening up of regulatory reform in order that ComReg could give notice to customers of such an event?

The website of the Department of the Taoiseach includes a section on the customer action plan for 2005 to 2008. The target set is that all correspondence will be acknowledged within three days and answered comprehensively within 15 days and that all emails will be acknowledged within one day. Are these targets being met by the Taoiseach's Department? Is he happy with them? What recourse is open to a person who does not receive an answer from the Taoiseach's Department within three days or 15 days? That is a specific question that he will want to answer.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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I hope those targets are being met. My officials are doing their utmost.

Denis Naughten (Longford-Roscommon, Fine Gael)
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Depending on the constituency.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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On what has happened with regard to regulation generally, a unit in my Department is working across the whole OECD area and the 2001 report. It is actively driving implementation and working with other Departments in trying to move it on. In some cases, it is the regulators who have the responsibilities. In other cases, a number of regulatory bodies are involved in respect of the professions and all the reports relate to range of professions. I have previously replied to Deputy Kenny in respect of this.

In respect of the reports specifically mentioned by Deputy Kenny, ComReg's latest quarterly data covering the fourth quarter of last year details what is happening in the telecommunications area. There is a long list of data. It provides an update of what is happening in the Irish market and what happened last year with regard to Smart Telecom and all the other areas. They have followed up these issues.

In the energy sector, there have been communications between the Department, the Commission for Energy Regulation and the ESB. They have followed up with regard to Bord Gáis and the tariffs and so on. There has been follow through on all these areas covered in the 2001 paper.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Is this the issue relating to Smart Telecom?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
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The Taoiseach did not answer Deputy Kenny's specific question about the number of recommendations from the 2001 OECD report that have been implemented by the Government either wholly or partially and the ones that remain untouched. It is important this information is provided to the House.

Does the Taoiseach accept Deputy Kenny's point regarding the Statute Law Revision Bill that it will have little impact on many of the impediments that still exist in terms of over-regulation because most of the laws being tackled under that Bill predate the type of mania in regulation that has come from Acts of this House, especially in recent years?

The Taoiseach referred to the existence of too many regulators. Is it not the case that his Government passed most of the legislation bringing many of these regulators into existence? It appears regulators have been used as a shield to hide behind to prevent questions being answered in this House? I cite the example of the electricity regulator not allowing renewable energy onto the national grid. If the Taoiseach is sincere about reducing the number of regulators, will we see legislation in this area in the near future?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Boyle has got the wrong idea. I did not refer to the number of regulators who were recently established. I refer to our overall legislation which brought into existence approximately 120 regulatory authorities. I do not refer to a handful of regulators.

Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
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Is the Government not adding to them?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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We are; last year, we added 11 more. We have been trying to reduce the number of regulators in recent years. Instead of appointing new regulators, we have been trying to assign new duties. Many of the existing regulatory authorities are local authorities such as urban councils. However, there are too many in terms of trying to do business or answer to them.

I do not have precise figures on the number of OECD report recommendations that have been implemented. However, although all the recommendations have not been completed, action has commenced in all of the areas. All of the work on regulatory impact analysis has been done. That work is almost concluded across most of the professional areas.

The Competition Authority completed a report on the engineering profession in December 2004. The report on the architects' profession was completed in March 2006. The report on the optometry profession was completed in June 2006. The report on the legal profession was completed in December 2006. A preliminary report on the dental profession was published in December 2005 and a final report is due later this year. A preliminary report on veterinary surgeons will be published this year. The final profession awaiting a report is medical practitioners and this is due in 2008. Reports on all of the major areas that required focus will be finished by next year.

I did not refer to progress on the reform of the legal profession. The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform announced the establishment on a statutory basis of a legal services ombudsman to provide for independent statute-based supervision of the complaints system for both solicitors and barristers. The Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill includes required provisions to establish a legal services ombudsman. While work has not been fully completed, it has commenced in most of the areas. Much work has been done on the decision-making processes of regulators. The Deputy's question was on regulators. The Enterprise Strategy Group published a report — Ahead of the Curve, Ireland's Place in the Global Economy — and made suggestions on how best we could deal with regulators and the idea of a super-regulator. This raised the question of the best way to address this. The Director of Consumer Affairs, the Competition Authority and the White Paper are examining this but the matter is not so simple. The report made the point that some regulations are minor whereas others, to do with building power stations, are wide. The best way of dealing with it has yet to be teased out. We cannot continue appointing regulators willy-nilly. It must be tightened and, to get expertise, perhaps we should create expert offices that can deal with a broad range of areas.