Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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225. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of new State bodies and agencies under her remit that have been established since February 2011; the number of such bodies subject to a sunset clause; the number of new public bodies currently being planned; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41268/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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For the Deputy's information, under the Public Service Reform plan, the following were identified for rationalisation or merger since 2011 and the following actions have taken place.

The Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology and Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences were merged in March 2012 to form the Irish Research Council (IRC). The IRC has been established as a sub-board of the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

Under the provisions of the Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012, the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI), the Higher Education Training Awards Council (HETAC) and the Further Education Training Awards Council (FETAC) were amalgamated to form a new agency, Quality and Qualifications Ireland.

Under the provisions of the Education and Training Boards Act 2013 the Vocational Education Committee (VEC) system was reconfigured, with the number of further education bodies being reduced from 33 to 16.Under the provisions of the Further Education and Training Act 2013 FÁS was dissolved in October 2013, with a new training authority, An tSeirbhís Oideachais Leanúnaigh agus Scileanna ( SOLAS) being created with responsibility for funding, planning and co-ordinating training and further education programmes. Following the enactment of the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act 2012, the Education Finance Board was dissolved in March 2013 and the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Board (Caranua) has been established.

The Educational Research Centre was established as an agency of the Department on 9th September 2015 under the Educational Research Centre Establishment Order, 2015. The Centre carries out independent research on many aspects of education including the conduct of national and international assessments of attainment and achievement, the evaluation of initiatives and programmes and critical analysis of issues in education.

Bodies under the aegis of my Department are not routinely subject to sunset clauses. Due to the evolving nature of the education remit it is typically the practice of my Department to work to dissolve relevant Bodies/agencies via the process of amending legislation whenever appropriate.

At this time my Department is not planning to create any new bodies in the education sector.