State-sponsored bodies of the Republic of Ireland

A State-Sponsored Body is the name given in Ireland to a state-owned enterprise (a government-owned corporation), that is to say, a commercial business which is beneficially owned, either completely or majority, by the Irish Government. Each state-sponsored body has a sponsor Minister who acts as shareholder, either independently, or in conjunction with the Minister for Finance, who may also be a shareholder. State-sponsored bodies are often popularly called semi-state companies, a misnomner, since they are all (mostly) fully owned by the state, in addition not all of them are actually companies. Less often they are referred to by the British term nationalised industry.

State-sponsored bodies may be organised as statutory corporations, meaning that they are officially non-profit and do not formally have shareholders, but are a board or other authority appointed by the sponsor Minister. Corporations of this type include:

Statutory corporations are governed under the particular statute that they are established under, and are not subject to the provisions of the Companies Acts, though similar requirements are often stated in the statute. The statutory corporation form of governance has fallen out of favour recently, with it being seen as less transparent and less commercially free than the limited company (see below). It is planned that VHI will become a limited company in the near future. On 21 January 2006 The Irish Times reported that the ESB and BGE will also move to plc status, however both companies remained in govnerment hands and never went to plc status. Under the draft Broadcasting Bill 2006 RTÉ and Telefís na Gaeilge would have become companies limited by guarantee, however the final Broadcasting Act 2009 retained their statutory corporation status.

Others may be organised as public limited companies or private limited companies. These are incorporated with the Companies Registration Office (Ireland) as companies, but their sole (or sometimes majority) shareholder is their sponsor minister. Some of these are exempt from the requirement to carry limited, teoranta, plc, or cpt as part of their company name. State-sponsored bodies incorporated in this fashion are, unlike their statutory corporation peers, subject to the provisions of the Companies' Acts. They have issued share capital, a board of directors, and all the other features of the type of company they are incorporated as. Examples include:

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