Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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625. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the measures he is taking to safeguard business by tackling existing administrative burdens caused by regulation and legislation; the cost of such burdens to businesses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15942/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The recent World Bank's Doing Business Report 2016 provides an assessment of a range of regulations affecting SMEs throughout their life cycle. In this Report Ireland is ranked 17^th for Ease of Doing Business, out of 189 countries. This places Ireland 4^thin the Euro area and 7^thin the EU. In the latest IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2016, Ireland is ranked 7th (out of 61 economies assessed), an improvement of 9 places from last year. This is a significant improvement on 2011 when Ireland was ranked 24th, and represents Ireland’s highest ranking since 2001. Based on this report, Ireland is now the most competitive country in the Euro area and 3rd most competitive in the EU28. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report provides an assessment of the factors driving productivity and prosperity across 140 countries. In the 2015-16 report, Ireland is ranked 24th - an improvement of 1 place from last year, and up from 29th place in 2011.

Good regulation provides a stable base for economic activity and a level playing field for business, while also protecting workers, consumers and the environment. The goal of Better Regulation Policy is to ensure that the processes for generating new regulation, and for evaluating existing regulation, are as effective and efficient as possible. Regulation should achieve the policy goals underpinning it in the least costly manner possible, without undermining the protections that regulation provides.

To this end, my Department has worked for several years to identify administrative burdens on business and to reduce them wherever possible. Between 2008 and 2012, a project, driven by my Department, identified administrative costs faced by business arising from regulation across Government. My Department, the CSO, Revenue and the Department of Transport all met or exceeded the 25% reduction target that was set, and a reduction of more than 20% was achieved across Departments reducing the cost of administrative burdens for business by almost €320 million annually.

Since 2005, the High Level Group on Business Regulation, and its predecessor, the Business Regulation Forum, have worked directly with business and union representatives to identify the most important regulatory burdens faced by business and to find solutions, simplifications and clarifications from the relevant Departments, Offices and Agencies.

Other measures taken by my Department include:

- Reducing the time taken by businesses to find out about the regulations that affect them by developing the businessregulation.ie portal, accessible from the front page of my Department’s website, under the heading Making it Easier for Business;

- Running seven Taking Care of Business events, where up to thirty public bodies come together for a free half-day event to provide information and advice to more than 2,000 business people to date;

- Developing an Integrated Licensing Application Portal to help reduce the regulatory burden on the enterprise sector through the provision of a single portal for applying for, and renewing, a multiplicity of licences;

- Consolidating 17 Companies Acts into one in 2014, making it easier to operate a company in Ireland, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and making company law obligations easier to understand; and

- The Workplace Relations Reform Programme, has led to the establishment of the Workplace Relations Commission to deliver a world-class workplace relations service and employment rights framework by merging the activities of several existing Bodies of First Instance and all existing appellate functions into an expanded Labour Court.