The Government has pledged to meet the EU target to cut by 25 per cent the administrative burden on business over the next five years.

Publishing the results of a comprehensive survey commissioned by the Department of the Taoiseach from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said yesterday that Ireland was putting in place a new mechanism to tackle the administrative burdens arising from national legislation.

Just over half of firms - 55 per cent - consider that the overall amount of regulation is "about right", with more firms agreeing than disagreeing that the regulations are easy to understand, achieve their objectives and are appropriately enforced.

Taxation, environmental legislation, health and safety regulations and statistical returns to the Central Statistics Office were most frequently mentioned as the regulations which represented an administrative burden for firms.

Concerns over issues such as energy, taxation and banking and finance were being dealt with by the Government's White Paper on Energy, ongoing work by the Revenue Commissioners with the business community and the major consolidation of banking and financial law, said Mr Ahern.

Business lobby group Ibec welcomed the Government announcement, but said that administrative burdens are only a small part of the overall regulatory burden on business and there is a need for better thought out legislation in future.

"The costs and benefits of legislation must be analysed in advance," said Ibec's head of legal and regulatory affairs, Marie Daly.

"We need to guard against further regulatory creep and the extra costs this imposes. The best way to do this is to think twice about legislating and in many cases to make better use of the law that is already in place."

However, Ms Duffy said that Ibec was glad to see the issue moving up the political agenda both under the EU's Lisbon agenda and domestically.

"It is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed if Ireland is to continue to attract foreign direct investment and promote business here," she said.