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Regulatory reform in Ireland began later than in many countries, but is now moving ahead on a broad front. Following Ireland’s remarkable economic performance in the 1990s, regulatory reform is helping to manage the consequences of fast growth and to sustain growth into the future. Reform is opening up important infrastructure and policy bottlenecks to further growth, promoting efficiency improvements that can help manage inflation, and establishing a more competitive and flexible economy that can innovate, adapt and prosper as the sources of its current prosperity change. Yet the reform agenda is still long. Bottlenecks in physical infrastructure are constraining growth, as are labour shortages, and public sector capacities. Weak competition in key sectors is a risk to future performance. While recognising the substantial progress made in recent years, this report calls for a more coherent and determined approach to regulatory reform. Ireland is among several OECD countries to request a broad review by the OECD of its national regulatory practices and domestic regulatory reforms. This review presents an integrated assessment of regulatory reform in framework areas such as the quality of the public sector, competition policy and enforcement, and market openness. It also contains chapters on sectors such as telecommunications, electricity, gas, pharmacies and legal services, and an assessment of the macroeconomic context for reform. The policy recommendations present a balanced plan of action for both short and longer term based on best international regulatory practices. In the same series: Regulatory Reform in the Czech Republic Regulatory Reform in Denmark Regulatory Reform in Greece Regulatory Reform in Hungary Regulatory Reform in Italy Regulatory Reform in Japan Regulatory Reform in Korea Regulatory Reform in Mexico Regulatory Reform in the Netherlands Regulatory Reform in Spain Regulatory Reform in the United States The general policy analysis which is the basis for these country reviews is presented in the OECD Report on Regulatory Reform: Synthesis, and the supporting two-volume OECD Report on Regulatory Reform: Sectoral and Thematic Studies, published in 1997.
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