Some 145 State agencies would be abolished under a Fine Gael government, the party said today.
It said it would rationalise or merge the number of 'quangos' as part of its public sector programme, with an estimated saving of €10 billion over five years.
Under the programme, a number of bodies would be merged. The Competition Authority, National Consumer Agency and three utilities regulators would become a single entity.
Forfas would be integrated into Department of Enterprise. The National Roads Authority and Railway Procurement Agency would also merge, as would the Pensions Ombudsman and the Financial Services Ombudsman.
The number of Vocational Educational Committees would be reduced from 33 to 20.
In addition, the Health and Safety Authority, the National Employment Rights Authority and other bodies would merge into a "single-business, inspection and licensing auithority".
The party said those jobs affected would either be lost through voluntary redundancy or redeployment, under the provisions of the Croke Park agreement between the government and the public sector unions.
In all, Fine Gael has said it would shed some 30,000 jobs in the public sector, with the redundancy programme costing between €800 million and €1 billion.
Announcing the plan in Dublin, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said: "We want to see a downsizing of the numbers and the cost, without impacting on frontline services, which are so important."
He admitted, however, that some agencies were "more complicated than others" and that legislation would be needed in some cases.
Front bench spokesman Richard Bruton said a "consistent criticism" of Ireland by bodies such as the OECD was that it had created "far too many agencies who have weak mandates and weak accountability".
"That has led to excessive cost. In the last 10 years, 250 additional agencies have been created," Mr Bruton said.
"This has not delivered the return in efficiency. We want to reinvent government, streamline those agencies." There would be 145 fewer agencies in place in four years time, he said.
Mr Bruton said the agencies all had their own finance department and their own human resources departments, which was very wasteful of resources.
"We are proposing that they would be integrated in a way that delivers much better value." He said agencies should have more direct accountability to Ministers, to taxpayers and to the Oireachtas.
Front bench spokesman Leo Varadkar said that in the last 10 or 15 years State agencies had become "the default option" for politicians.
There were, for example, hundreds of different offices processing entitlements. This could all be managed by a single office, he said.
Fianna Fáil defence spokesman Niall Collins said the Fine Gael plan did not stand up "to even basic scrutiny".
"In plans they re-announced this morning, I was not surprised by the omission of any reference to the new agencies such as Bioenergy Ireland, Broadband 21, Irish Water, Smart Grid."
Mr Collins dismissed the proposals as "rhetoric, empty talk and more empty promises".
