Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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186. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will list the regulators which are accountable to his Department; the administrative cost of operating each regulator in 2012; the accommodation costs and the number of staff employed; the total income and expenditure in 2012 for each regulator; his plans to amalgamate some regulatory offices and to amalgamate some regulatory processes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29425/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department has a number of Offices and Agencies with regulatory and enforcement remits, namely the Competition Authority, National Consumer Agency, Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, Companies Registration Office, Registry of Friendly Societies, Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, Employment Appeals Tribunal, Labour Relations Commission, Labour Court, National Employment Rights Authority, Health and Safety Authority, Patent’s Office, the Legal Metrology Unit of the National Standards Authority of Ireland and Irish National Accreditation Board.

In respect of information requested for the Agencies under my remit, this is an operational matter for the Agencies concerned, for which I have no direct function. I am referring the specific question to each of the Agencies under my remit with a request to respond to you directly.

All Agencies are required to have their annual reports audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Agencies 2012 audited accounts are not yet available. Once completed, the audited accounts will be presented to me following which they will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

In relation to costs for Offices of my Department for 2012, all of the necessary processes in advance of publication of the 2012 Appropriate Account are not yet complete and, therefore, this information is not yet available. However, the allocations for each were as follows:

NERA is one of the workplace relations bodies to be incorporated into the Workplace Relations Commission. I have commenced the process to reform the State’s employment rights and industrial relations structures. This will involve two statutorily independent bodies replacing the current five (which includes NERA). There will be a new single body of first instance to be called the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and a separate appeals body, which will effectively be an expanded Labour Court. The WRC will replace the Labour Relations Commission, NERA, the Equality Tribunal and undertake the first instance functions of the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT). The Labour Court will take on the appellate functions of the EAT. A significant amount of work has been completed on the preparation of the Workplace Relations Bill, which will give statutory effect to the Reform proposals. The Scheme of the Workplace Relations Bill has been approved by Government for priority drafting. Engagement is on-going with the Attorney General’s Office and I am committed to enactment of the legislation at an early stage with a view to having the proposed new structures in place from 2014.

As part of the programme of rationalisation of state bodies, the National Consumer Agency is to merge with the Competition Authority. Work on drafting the legislation to merge the National Consumer Agency and the Competition Authority is on-going and the Bill is included in the “A list” in the Government’s current Legislative Programme.