Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 14: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the locations where he will reduce the regulatory burden faced by business; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18988/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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On 8 March last the Department of the Taoiseach published the results of an ESRI survey of business attitudes to regulation. At the same time the Taoiseach stated that the Government had agreed to put in place a new mechanism to tackle administrative burdens arising from national legislation in a targeted way.

The Government also agreed that I should lead a Government-wide effort to drive this agenda. I have asked the Secretary-General of my Department to chair a High-level Group representative of Departments, Agencies, the business sector and the Irish Congress of Trades Unions, to look at ways of reducing the administrative burden of regulations on the business sector. The intention is to bring the regulating Departments and Agencies into direct contact with business representatives and the focus initially will be on those areas which seem to be causing the biggest burden of form-filling, returns, reports, statistics etc.

The areas that this work will initially focus on have been decided based on the work of the Business Regulation Forum, whose report I launched on the 25th of April, and the ESRI survey of business attitudes to regulation. These areas are taxation, health and safety, environmental regulation, statistical reporting, and employment and company law.

To further this work, my Department recently conducted two workshops with business people to discuss specific concerns. The outcome of these workshops will be fed directly into the work of the High-level Group.