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His latest project will see him working alongside the Arts Minster Estelle Morris, as chairman of the Live Music Forum.

Its brief is to promote live music and monitor the introduction of the new Licensing Act which threatens to prevent small venues from putting on live music because of bureaucracy.

In a recent interview with the Guardian newspaper he said the new forum would be to find out more about live music venues, how many people go and the total number of other resources like rehearsal rooms.

Critics say they find it somewhat incongruous that that a government funded body is being led by a former punk - and that much of the underlying basis of the punk scene was founded on anti capitalism.

Sharkey is known to have a sharp brain when it comes to business - he arranged the Undertones' five year record deal.

He went on to have some success as a solo act with top 10 hit Never Never and his 1985 number one A Good Heart but this phase of his career was to prove short lived.

A spell as an A&R man for a record company and a stint as a label boss followed but Sharkey had always wondered what life in his 40s would hold.

Five years of experience dealing with the government followed when he took a job at the Radio Authority and the contract ran out but overlapped with his new position.