Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 179: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of quasi-government quangos that are in existence; and the annual cost of these quasi-Government quangos. [4181/09]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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It is not clear which bodies the Deputy has precisely in mind. If it is non-commercial semi-state bodies there are 117 of these with spending of Euro 6 billion, almost Euro 4 billion of which is accounted for by the Higher Education Authority, the National Roads Authority, and FÁS.

There are also many other bodies that he may be referring to such as hospitals (there are 53 in the HSE's Hospital Network), commercial state bodies (35), universities and other third level institutions (31), to health related bodies (12), just over 300 local and regional bodies and various ad-hoc and advisory bodies. The estimate of the number of such bodies depends on the definitions used and the criteria applied.