Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On a related matter, and as I mentioned earlier, this committee will have finding of recommendations when we conclude in November. One proposed recommendation that was put to us was put by Professor Bill Black earlier, back in February 2015, and it was in a response to a question put by Deputy Phelan actually at the time, and a follow up to an earlier question. And Deputy Phelan was asking Professor Black, "Will he outline for the committee the changes to those rules with regard to external auditors that could be made?" And one suggestion that Professor Black made was that the straight answer is not to allow "the bankers to pick the auditors. There should instead be a panel of qualified auditors that are assigned to each of them, and we should track the performance of thosee auditors It would be like [regulation, or] relegation [sorry, actually]. If someone had a record of screwing up, they get yanked out from the panel...". Then he goes on to say that they'd go on to "do smaller accounts and prove over the five years that they can do it right, and then get back up to [do] the "bigs.". That being the big four and the big eight or whatever. When asked who should operate the relegation process, he said the United States Government, but in the context of this inquiry, it would be the Irish Government. Do you have any comment on such an approach?