Irish Public Service Reform:  The Government today announced  plans to rationalise 48 State agencies or quangos by the end of next year and to review the position of a further 46 bodies by the end of next June. There will be no bonfire of quangos and it's clear that a slow-motion process can be expected. It is almost five years since then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern commissioned the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to review the public service and recommend changes. The OECD reported in April 2008 and criticised the proliferation of "arm's length bodies," known as quangos and concluded the situation amounted to an "organisational zoo." Bertie Ahern agreed that the estimated 800 agencies were "too many agencies by half."