Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 55: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the actions his Departments Reform and Delivery Office has taken to simplify the administrative landscape in respect of State agency classifications and listings. [3801/12]

Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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Question 88: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide a full list of all non-commercial State agencies. [3783/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 55 and 88 together.

The Government is committed to a programme of public service reform and improvement. As part of the work in this area, we are looking at classifications and listings of State agencies in order to produce more coherent and focused directories of services for citizens and the Oireachtas.

Deputies will be aware of the Government's plans to reduce the number of State agencies. This radical streamlining is a key deliverable of the Government's reform programme and will lead to a more transparent, accountable and efficient public service.

The Government has also decided to introduce sunset clauses when new bodies are created which will ensure a new body will cease to exist after a predetermined date unless its mandate is specifically renewed; ensure Departments regularly review the continuing business case for all significant State bodies; and require that robust service level agreements are put in place as a matter of urgency by each Department with each of its State bodies.

This work is ongoing and will lead to a more consistent and straightforward classification of State bodies, with greater democratic oversight by the various Oireachtas committees within whose remit they fall. In the meantime, each Department will have details of each of the bodies and agencies within its remit. In the case of my own Department there are a number of types of bodies under its aegis but none of these come strictly within the meaning of "non-commercial semi-State agency".

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister will know that a number of months ago I requested from his Department a list of State agencies. After much toing and froing, I received a list of 150 bodies. However, that list was incomplete. When I queried it, I was referred to the Institute of Public Administration which lists 250 agencies. A number of weeks ago I raised the matter with the Minister at a committee meeting and he assured me that there was a comprehensive list of State agencies, but he did not send it to me. Weeks later I wrote to the reform and delivery programme director who wrote back to confirm that there was no such list. If the Minister is going to streamline State agencies, I suggest a first step would be to have a full list. It is astonishing that the Minister with responsibility for public sector reform who tells us he is going to smash quangos and streamline State agencies does not have a list of those very agencies.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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For once, I largely agree with the Deputy. Since we started the dialogue I have been anxious to obtain a comprehensive list. There are some listed agencies which no longer function and have not done so for years. I have asked every line Department for its list. Some bodies operate as a subset of another State agency. We will draw all of them together. That work is ongoing.

I never said I wanted to smash quangos. I have never used such language. I want to streamline State agencies. In the programme I published last November I laid out the 48 bodies which would be rationalised this year. We will conclude the review of a further 46 bodies by the middle of this year and determine their future.

Some bodies on the Deputy's list of 250 have not met for years. I brought a report to the Government this morning, for example, of a committee which comes into being when a senior civil servant who is leaving the public service applies to work in a related area and needs permission to do so. That group, although it is categorised as an agency or a quango, meets once in a blue moon. When we talk about quangos or agencies and not having comprehensive lists, we need to understand some of them are very tiny which meet to perform specific functions under legislation, some dating back decades, while others are very important. We know all the important agencies which we need to rationalise. We need to have a comprehensive list and we are working on it. I will get it to the Deputy as soon as it is available.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I suggest the Minister get a move on. Given that he has brought forward his proposals for rationalisation, I would have made a working assumption that he had a full list.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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We know about everything that is significant.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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It is not too much to ask of the system. It is a matter of proceeding in the correct fashion. I look forward to receiving the list.