Streamlining quangos - A welcome consequence of recession

NOT so long ago, when Boyzone were boys rather than men facing middle age, the answer to more or less every social difficulty was to throw a quango at it.

There can hardly be an area of concern that does not have its very own corps of lobbyists filing reports that annually highlight some perpetual inadequacy in service provision or need for extra staff and funding.

Department of Finance figures show that the number of people employed in non-commercial semi-state bodies grew by more than 60% to 16,000 between 2000 and 2007. The number across the public sector has grown by more than 30% in that period.