Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is correct. The Minister of State remembers the incident as well. I listened to the interview at the time. It illustrated the point that we often feel secure on the basis of being in a state of blissful ignorance rather than by virtue of any great precautionary measures that are in place to protect us. I would welcome a comment in that regard.

The programme for Government, and in particular Fine Gael’s five-point plan, made a great virtue of the abolition of 105 State agencies. The Minister of State indicated that 46 agencies have been abolished to date. My information is that 45 have been abolished due to mergers. The corollary is that 33 new quangos have been created during the lifetime of the Government. Some like Uisce Éireann are monster quangos. The net effect is a reduction of approximately a dozen quangos. I strongly supported the abolition of quangos. I would like to see greater emphasis placed on such an approach as quangos are very costly. I note that the propensity of the Government has been to merge quangos rather than abolish them. There might well be good reasons in certain instances for that but one of the difficulties with merging quangos is that the attendant costs of the quangos continue, albeit under a different and larger budget umbrella. Given the fiscal crisis, I would have thought eradicating the costs in some instances would have been an attractive target to achieve. The Minister of State’s observations would be welcome on Committee Stage, which I understand we will have tomorrow.

I note that the Minister of State indicated that the merger of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, RPII, are complementary. However, in many ways that is not the case. The RPII was specifically set up to protect individuals from the harmful effects of radon gas and to examine the health implications whereas the role of the EPA is to protect against the degradation of the environment by human activities. They are two different objectives.

I understand that any analysis carried out prior to the decision being taken showed no meaningful benefit would be derived from such a merger. The Minister of State could correct me if I am wrong. While I do not object to mergers in principle, anything we do in that regard places emphasis on the benefit to be derived from a higher public awareness of the dangers of radon gas. The RPII was particularly good in that regard and created such an essential awareness in terms of public health. I would not welcome any dilution of its power. The name of the organisation - the RPII - is important and I have tabled an amendment so that it is reflected in the organisation following the merger.

How it functions within the organisation is also very important and it needs a statutory underpinning. Those are issues that we can deal with on Committee Stage.