Mr. Pat Houlihan:

I am sorry for forgotting the Deputy's original point. The 2006 audit directive that the proposed directive is seeking to amend put in place a quasi-homogenous audit Community-wide in order that, whether one was in Ireland, Italy, France or Spain, the rules and regulations that applied were homogenous. Up to now we did not see the need to put in place particular provisions in Ireland that were not to be found in the directive. If people make representations and a strong case, obviously, we are always open to consider them. The directive was posited on having in place a quasi-homogenous audit throughout the Community. The directive is less binding to the extent that with a directive a member state will perceive itself as having a degree of discretion.

With a regulation, however, it has direct effect and what the regulation says is what has to be done. If the regulation is followed through, in its present complexion, with its 72 articles, we will have comparable, if not identical situations throughout the community. It is a reasonable piece of work, in my view. I am not sure if there are other areas that need to be covered but if people point any out to us, we will certainly seek to do that. It is pretty comprehensive and if the regulation comes into force then no member state will have any option but to implement it. That is exactly how the Commission wants it to happen. The Commission said that it found some discrepancies in how member states implemented the 2006 directive. Ireland was not called to account on that score, so we must have done it reasonably well, but other countries were called to account. That forms part of the rationale for bringing forward a regulation in this case, so that there will be no crevices or gaps in any given member state. It will be a community-wide system, applied by everybody in the same way.