Mr. Kevin Prendergast:

I will try to be brief on what is a decidedly non-brief topic. What has happened in the UK is that they have done what is called operational separation. They have not split the firms, but require them to do separate income reporting, so you can identity whether audit is making a profit and other entities are not. This comes back to the discussion about having the multidisciplinary model, which is whether you have a firm that is audit only or provides other services. One area that has more recently brought that into focus, which I know the Deputy has looked at, is the new corporate sustainability reporting directive. If an audit firm wants to provide assurance on that, it needs a multiplicity of skills. That is one argument in favour of the multidisciplinary model. Against that, that model provides challenges in the area of independence. Deputy Dolan referred to there being legislation on providing non-audit work. There are limits to the amount of money that can be made from non-audit work, which tries to copper-fasten that.