WITH the public finances in a sorry state, the new government will obviously be looking for ways of trimming back its costs, along with most households across the land.

One obvious saving would be to immediately abolish the National Property Services Regulatory Authority (NPSRA), the body which has failed to get Oireachtas approval to police the property industry over the last three years.

Though the legislation reached an advanced stage before the Government collapsed, the Oireachtas clearly did not see the urgency of giving teeth to an organisation that has failed to impress and has nothing to do.

The odds are that the next Government will not endorse the terms of the legislation already introduced, and so it may well be back to the drawingboard for the NPRSA.

The country can ill afford to keep a team of highly paid public servants for the next few years in what is County Meath’s best office block. At the last count there were seven full time employees and two part-time workers attached to the quango.

Attempts to get to the bottom of the expenditure involved in setting up and running the organisation have been met with the usual stonewalling by the Department of Justice.

Last time the question of the NPRSA’s costs came up in the Dáil in September 2010, the appropriate minister offered a figure of €347,000 covering an eight-month period last year.

He made no attempt to give the full costs involved since the organisation was set up in 2007, or whether salaries were included in the figure mentioned. A call yesterday to the department got us no further. We’d particuarly like to know what the full costs have been of setting up and running the body to date, and how long it is committed to renting its lavish space in Navan.