A new oversight forum on business regulation has been set up to advise the Government, writes Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent
The Business Regulation Forum (BRF) was announced yesterday by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin.
It is to be chaired by Dr Donal de Buitléir, general manager at the office of the chief executive, AIB Group.
Mr Martin said the group will advise him and he, in turn, will advise the Government on regulatory issues as they affect business "in particular on problems arising from outdated, inefficient or disproportionate regulation".
The forum is to work in parallel with the existing Better Regulation Group of Government officials and regulators, with the forum taking a "strategic overview" of the application of regulation and examine specific regulations, on a problem-solving basis, the minister said.
Mr Martin announced the members of the forum from the business sector and said the business expertise of these people would be complemented by regulatory and administrative expertise drawn from the public sector.
Dr de Buitléir is a former assistant secretary in the Revenue Commissioners and is a member of the board of the Health Service Executive. He gave evidence to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee's DIRT inquiry.
He told the inquiry that a senior Revenue official had informed him in 1991 that AIB had an effective "amnesty" over taxes due on former bogus non-resident accounts. The committee found that no such deal was agreed by the Revenue.
The other members of the forum are: Diarmuid Bradley, deputy CEO, Permanent TSB; Marie Daly, Ibec; Pat Delaney, Small Business Association; Gearóid Doyle, Kinsale Capital; Pat Farrell, CEO, Irish Bankers Federation; Mark Fielding, Isme; Maurice Healy, chief executive, Healy Group; Trevor Holmes, Intel Ireland Ltd; Dermot Jewell, Consumers Association of Ireland; Prof Irene Lynch Fannon, Dept of Law, UCC; Senator Fergal Quinn; Miriam Ryan, Dublin Airport Authority; and Imelda Reynolds, Beauchamps Solicitors.
