Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 July 2016
435. Deputy John Deasy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of State or quasi-non-Governmental agencies which have been abolished or merged since 2011; the number of new agencies created during the same period; and the current total number of such agencies. [20710/16]
View answerI refer the Deputy to the Report on the Implementation of the Agency Rationalisation Programme, which is published on my Department's web site at http://www.per.gov.ie/en/reports/. The Report provides information on what was achieved under the previous Government's objective of reducing the number of state bodies.
The Report published in December 2014 and based on information provided by Government Departments shows that measures involving more than 90 percent of the bodies to be rationalised and merged were completed by the end of that year. Since the Report was published, further measures have been implemented. As of July 2016 there are 176 fewer bodies. Those bodies remaining to be rationalised/merged are: the Valuation Office, the Property Registration Authority and Ordinance Survey Ireland which are due to be brought together to form Táilte Éireann; the Pensions Ombudsman, which is due to be absorbed into the Financial Services Ombudsman; the merger of the Digital Hub Development Authority into Dublin City Council; and the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioners, which will be subsumed into Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (Department of Justice and Equality) once the International Protection Act 2015 is fully commenced.
Some new bodies have been established to address matters that the Government decided were urgent, including the Pyrite Resolution Board, Microfinance Ireland, Insolvency Service of Ireland, the Charities Regulatory Authority and the Policing Authority.
For further information, I refer the Deputy to a summary table of non-commercial state agencies and their related expenditure, which is presented in the annual revised estimates publication and which can be found at http://www.per.gov.ie/en/rev/. The CSO also publishes a separate register of all general government bodies including both the commercial and non-commercial state agencies. This report is available at:
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/surveysandmethodologies/documents/pdfdocs/Regofpublicsectorbodies2015April.pdf
