THE BOARD of the National Consumer Agency, which has attracted controversy since it was set up in 2007, is to be scrapped once the consumer body is merged with the Competition Authority later this year.
The Government announced the move yesterday as it gave the go-ahead to the drafting of a Consumer and Competition Bill to establish a new Consumer and Competition Authority.
The new Bill will be brought before the Dáil in the next term.
Under existing legislation, the agency has a chief executive, a chairman and a board of 11. The new merged entity will not have a chief executive or a board and will report directly to Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton.
Announcing the scrapping of the board, Mr Bruton said it would result in savings of about €170,000 a year in board and board-related fees.
From its inception in 2007, the authority’s board members received fees of some €14,000 in addition to travel and subsistence expenses for attending about six board meetings every year.
Its most controversial member was Celia Larkin, the one-time partner of Bertie Ahern, who was taoiseach when the board was established. She is no longer a board member.
“If we are to get out of this crisis, we must relentlessly pursue a radical reform agenda, including a determined programme of cost reductions across the economy,” said Mr Bruton.
He claimed the new Consumer and Competition Authority would be “a consumer rights enforcer with real teeth, a strong regulator with the combined resources, experience and expertise to robustly tackle anti-consumer practices and sheltered sectors in our economy”.
