Quango cull on cards as obvious bedfellows emerge from review

N EWTON'S OPTIC:Endless opportunities for merging agencies and authorities

FOLLOWING THE Government's decisive agreement to consider a review of planned proposals for potential oversight of public spending, The Irish Timescan reveal exclusively the interim submissions for possible mergers of certain quangos.

ROAD SECURITY AUTHORITY

Merging the Road Safety Authority with the Private Security Authority will create a single licensing system for drivers and Real IRA pub door staff. The old provisional licensing system will no longer apply. Newly qualified drivers and dissident republican door staff have much in common, differing mainly in whether they won’t let you in or won’t let you out.

COMBINED DRUGS FORCE

Ireland has 14 Local Drugs Task Forces, 10 Regional Drugs Task Forces and a National Drugs Strategy Team. These could all be rolled up into a single joint agency. Questions must also be asked about the National Advisory Committee on Drugs. Why is it on drugs? Can it not advise itself to stop?

GARDA REFUGEE TRIBUNAL

Merging the Garda Síochána Complaints Board with the Refugee Appeals Tribunal will provide a one-stop shop for people who wish to complain about a recording of gardaí threatening to deport them, even if they are not refugees in the first place.

LÉARGAS AN GEARÓID

Léargas promotes exchange programmes in youth and community work. By coincidence, Léargas is also the name of Gerry Adams’s blog. By further coincidence, Mr Adams often writes at length about youth and community work. Now the Sinn Féin leader is on the public payroll, only one Léargas is required.

SALMON OIL AGENCY

Merging the National Salmon Commission with the National Oil Reserves Agency will allow salmon oil to be counted in the strategic fuel stockpile, adding the health-giving benefits of Omega-3 fatty acid to the economic benefits of key commodity price stabilisation. Other oily fish could be included later, as long as the National Salmon Commission makes the initial leap.

NMCOORP

It is not clear what goes on at the National Monitoring Committee Overseeing the Operation of the Rapid Programme. Questions have been asked in the Dáil but the answers were hardly clear either. However, it is clear that efficiencies could be made if its name was merged into something shorter.

MENTAL FLUORIDE BODY

Merging the Mental Health Commission with the Expert Body on Fluorides and Health will allow everyone obsessed with fluoride in the water to be treated alongside the rest of the mentally ill. This could in turn be merged with the Poisons Council, unless that would only encourage them.

COMPETING COMPETITIVENESS COUNCILS

The Competition Authority and the National Competitiveness Council will be vertically integrated into a single body then horizontally split into two identical bodies that will compete against each other to drive down costs until one is driven out of business altogether, delivering savings in excess of 50 per cent. A similar approach was suggested to the Competition Law Review Group but apparently that would be illegal.

TASK FORCE FEEDING

Merging the Hunger Task Force with the National Obesity Task Force would have obvious advantages, not least because the obese are the hungriest people of all. It is true the National Obesity Task Force has been dormant since 2005 but that is just the kind of sedentary lifestyle it takes a firm Government to address.