Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 539: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if his Department was required to take part in the inter-departmental group on administrative burden education; if his Department has yet listed information obligations that his Department's regulations impose on business; if so, the number of information obligations listed; if his Department has yet assessed which requirements are the most burdensome; if his Department has measured the actual cost to business of the most burdensome requirements and if so, the total cost. [40345/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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My Department participated in the Inter-Departmental Group on Administration Burden Reduction. This group is tasked with examining the administration burdens arising from obligations created under Irish legislation.

The measurement of administrative burdens using a Standard Cost Model is an exercise that was called for by business, as a baseline for the 25% administrative burden reduction programme and is being carried out across all Departments with any substantive regulation that affects business. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation will shortly commence a process which will provide assistance to all Departments to measure the current costs on business arising from their national regulations. As part of this process, this Department has provided the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation with a list of fifty information obligations, many of which are of minor nature.

However, the main schemes operated by my Department are operated under European legislation. In that respect, the EU Commission presented in 2005 a Communication on Simplification and Better Regulation for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This set out an ambitious programme for a significant simplification of the CAP. The programme and its implementation are fully embedded in the overall Commission strategy on Better Regulation and in particular the Simplification Rolling Programme and the Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burden. My Department has strongly supported the simplification process at European level which aims to reduce the administrative burden by some 25% by 2012.