Taoiseach Announces New Forum For Regulators

The new forum, which will meet in the first quarter of each year, is being announced as part of a range of measures contained in the Government Statement on Economic Regulation published today.

The Statement will act as a framework for Ireland's on-going approach to regulating key economic sectors. In particular, it addresses the need to strengthen consumer input into regulators' activities and to ensure that the views of regulated suppliers are balanced by a strong consumer voice.

This will be achieved through consultation with industry and consumers who will now have a formal role in scrutinising planned expenditure and levies.

The Taoiseach noted the importance of the actions outlined in the Government Statement and stated that: "we need to ensure that the legal mandates and actions taken by regulators fully take account of changes in the market and the broader economy while having regard to the requirements of EU law."

The Statement includes a commitment to review the role and mandates of key economic regulators every five years and emphasises the importance of scrutiny and oversight of regulators by Government Departments.

In particular, contingency planning will be used to ensure that regulatory frameworks are sufficiently robust to be able to respond to major sectoral or economic shocks.

The Government Statement is being published in tandem with the Review of the Economic Regulatory Environment. Arising from a commitment in the Programme for Government, the Economist Intelligence Unit, in partnership with Compecon, were commissioned to undertake this independent Review.

The Review benchmarks a number of key regulators against their international counterparts across a range of criteria such as accountability and governance; adequacy of mandates and operational costs.

It focuses in particular on the communications, energy, transport, financial services and health and safety sectors. Taking account of EU requirements and best practice elsewhere, the Review concludes that the present system of independent economic regulation continues to the best model for Ireland.