Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 19 February 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

General Scheme of the Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018: Discussion

Mr. Ian Drennan:

With regard to the big four audit firms, in my previous job I regulated the accountancy profession.

Thankfully, I do not do that any more and most of them are not companies and therefore do not come within our remit. On a serious note, for example, most of the companies relocating to the Republic of Ireland as a consequence of Brexit thus far appear to be in the financial services sector. That came up with the departmental officials on a previous occasion. There was a particular report about a proposal to transfer substantial sums of investments to this jurisdiction. Those entities all clearly come within the remit of the Central Bank. They would need to be authorised and go through that whole approval process. Unless there was a particular company law or criminality issue, the general risks attaching to the large-scale financial institutions and the sorts of issues that can arise would very much come within the remit of the Central Bank and not the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

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