I have two specific questions about the OECD's findings in its report.

The first concerns the strategic management initiative. The report stated that reliance on the SMI approach based on self-assessment and peer pressure may provide too few incentives to transform regulatory traditions and practices. It went on to state that the unit in the Department of the Taoiseach was too small to achieve any results and that its smallness revealed what the OECD described as a lack of political commitment to SMI, presumably on the part of the Taoiseach himself. Has that changed?

Does the Taoiseach agree with a second statement made by the OECD, to the effect that, compared with the pace of change in the Executive regarding deregulation, the Dáil has been slow to assume its new regulatory accountability role? It goes on to state that adequate resources have not been accompanied—

Is the Deputy quoting the report?

I can quote it from memory. Adequate resources have not been provided for the Oireachtas to enable it to fulfil what is required of it to ensure that regulatory reform means something. Does the Taoiseach not agree that there is a tremendous risk in this area of creating more paperwork, allegedly to eliminate it, and that there is an endless capacity to set up committees and procedures, supposedly to relieve burdens, but in fact increasing them because of their sheer size and number?

To answer Deputy Bruton's first question, following that suggestion, we took all those involved in the strategic management initiative and related areas in the Department, with which Deputy Bruton is familiar, and put them all together. We did not simply create a new unit for regulatory impact analysis. To maximise the usefulness of my staff, I brought the entire SMI section and all the related parts together to achieve a more efficient operation. The section is still not enormous, but, as the Deputy knows, there is a fair number of people.

Does the Taoiseach not agree that there are no rewards for civil servants who perform well and no sanctions for those who perform badly?

Deputy Bruton and all Members of the House know the system in place for civil servants and it is not true to say that they are not rewarded. It is increasingly the case that civil servants of what would have been considered extremely young ages a decade ago now progress to the top positions of Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General, and do so on ability. Promotion is not as it was, namely, based on age grounds. That younger people can get up the ranks is a benefit. That is what I did to get the best value out of my staff and to bring the sections together.

I agree with Deputy Bruton that we should not set up sections or systems to create more paperwork or more cumbersome issues. That is precisely what the OECD report was about. We should consider all that we do in regard to legislation, regulation and otherwise to find where the system could be simplified or made more sensitive or to find where we should not have it, and to try to keep under very set criteria issues for which we must develop a model, as I said earlier, under the ten areas I outlined earlier.

Regulatory impact analysis and the OECD report are about trying to act more efficiently. It is not an exercise in bureaucracy but the opposite; it is intended to simplify a system which can be extremely bureaucratic, and I hope this system is not going in that direction.

What about the Oireachtas?

Substantial resources have been put into the Oireachtas in recent years. It was highlighted in the report that we do not, as we should, have a committee on competitiveness. I have already engaged with the party leaders and the Whips in regard to that. It was stated in the OECD report and in Sustaining Progress that we should have a committee geared to competitiveness in the House and I accept that we have not addressed that.