Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 73: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the steps that are being taken to reduce the incidence of and costs associated with red tape in relation to the establishment and maintenance of small business in this country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24407/10]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The administrative procedures relating to the establishment of Companies is under the remit of my Department and is the responsibility of the Companies Registration Office (CRO). The CRO processed over 380,000 statutorily required documents in 2009 of which 13,320 were new company registrations. The customer service target deadlines of five, ten and fifteen working days for the three company incorporation schemes operated by the Office were consistently met and regularly exceeded during 2009.

I can assure the Deputy that every effort is being made within current resources to ensure that all customers of the Companies Registration Office receive the best possible service.

The red tape costs associated with maintaining a business in Ireland are, in my view, a key competitiveness issue. That is why my Department has a multi-faceted approach to dealing with these administrative costs, and finding ways to reduce them as much as possible, without damaging the policy goals of the regulations underpinning them.

The High Level Group on Business Regulation was set up in 2007 to act as a standing dialogue between Government, business and unions. The Group's Work-Programme consists of specific red tape issues arising from business workshops and submissions, as well as suggestions fed in directly by the business organisations on the Group.

The Group is effectively a clearing house for these concrete issues. Since its inception, the High Level Group has tackled almost 70 such issues; 38 of these have already been processed to finality to the satisfaction of the business members.

In addition, my Department is leading and coordinating the cross-Government drive to measure and reduce administrative burdens for all business in Ireland. In March 2008 the Government set a 25% target to reduce administrative burdens on business, arising from regulations, by 2012.

This is being done in a prioritised way, drawing from the experience of other Member States involved in administrative burden reduction.

During 2009, a prioritised list of more than thirty Information Obligations in Company Law, Employment Law and Health & Safety Law, which fall within the remit of my Department, were measured. The results of this exercise were validated by business in December 2009.

My Department is running a series of simplification workshops to identify ways to reduce burdens in the three measured areas. The purpose of the workshops is to identify the best practical ways to make real reductions in the red tape burden that businesses face in Ireland.

The ideas generated at these workshops are feeding in to the development of simplification plans in the three areas of regulation. It is intended that these will be presented to the High Level Group on Business Regulation, for their inputs and validation in the Autumn.

At Inter-Departmental level, Departments that have regulation that affects business are identifying the information obligations contained in their legislation that are likely to be causing the biggest burdens for business. A consolidated priority list of information obligations will be agreed and then measured in a single cross-Government project. I expect that this measurement project will be completed in 2011.

Simplification plans will then be developed to reduce the administrative burden by 25% by 2012.