Target date for quango cull to be missed

The Government will not meet its target to cull 48 state agencies by the end of the year.

And at least 11 of a further 46 agencies that were under review will escape the chopping block.

Brendan Howlin, the public expenditure minister, released an update on the rationalisations yesterday.

Almost a year ago, he said 48 state agencies would be rationalised by the end of this year, while the position of a further 46 would be reviewed.

However, yesterday’s update showed that not all of the initial 48 will be culled by the Dec 31 deadline.

One of them — the proposal for the National Cancer Registry to be subsumed within the HSE — will not go ahead and it will remain a standalone body “in the short to medium term”, Mr Howlin’s department said.

Of the remaining 47, some have been completed — such as the merger of the regeneration agencies in Limerick into the local authorities — but others need legislation or further work and will not be finished by the end of the year.

For example, while draft legislation to enable the merger of the National Sports Campus Development Authority with the Irish Sports Council will to go to Government before the end of December, it will be next year before that legislation is passed and the merger is completed.

Mr Howlin insisted that “significant progress” had been made, and that 47 of the 48 measures would be completed on a “legislative or administrative basis” by the end of the year.

“Savings of €20m in enhanced service efficiencies and value-for-money were targeted, a target which will be achieved.”

Of the additional 46 agencies that were reviewed:

* 24 will be rationalised by the end of 2013;

* 11 will not be culled, merged, or rationalised;

* Three reviews are still ongoing;

* The remaining eight reviews have been deferred “due to external factors”.

Among the 24 that will be rationalised are the National Competitiveness Council, which will be absorbed into the Department of Jobs, and the Radiological Protection Institute, which will be merged with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Among the 11 agencies that will not be culled, rationalised or merged are the National Milk Agency, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, the Railway Safety Commission, and the Heritage Council.