Bord Snip
advisory committee established by the Irish Government
The Expenditure Review Committee (more commonly known as An Bord Snip) was an advisory committee established by the Irish Government in 1987 to recommend cuts in state spending.
Establishment
The committee was established by the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, and the Minister for Finance Ray MacSharry. It was a three-man committee comprising two senior civil servants, Seán Cromien and Bob Curran, and a private sector economist, Colm McCarthy.
Etymology
An Bord Snip was a colloquial, comic term for the body. It is a mix of Irish and English words, literally meaning "the snip board". Many state agencies in Ireland have the words an bord (meaning "the board") in their title, for example Bord Iascaigh Mhara (the Irish Sea-Fisheries Board); "snip" refers to the cost-cutting remit of the group. In 2008 another board with a similar remit was established, referred to as "An Bord Snip Nua". Nua is the Irish word for "new".
“Bord Snip” enters the record as advisory committee established by the Irish Government. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bord, Snip and advisory can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Bord Snip” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bord, Snip and advisory provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 19, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q4944433. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1987 and 2008.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bord Snip” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.