Mr. Tim Bush:

I will comment on that. We definitely need to do that. The select committee of the UK Parliament that was looking at this area took evidence from the accounting firms on the Wednesday of that week and were given a view of the law by the accountants. The AssetCo case settled on the Thursday and, by the time the committee came back the following Tuesday, its members realised there was the court's version of the law and what they had been told the day previously by the accountants.

Interestingly, on that Tuesday, the French firm Mazars appeared before that committee. Mazars is a professional firm and its representatives told the committee the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and it was good to watch. For historical reasons and due to EU directives, UK and Irish company law is identical. People who are chartered accountants of an Irish institute take exams based on the same questions as their UK counterparts, only one paper contains reference to the UK Companies Act and the other to the Irish Companies Act. I know that people try to pull the wool over one's eyes and read the UK Companies Act wrongly by misinterpreting words. From talking to Mr. Butler and looking at the two Acts over the years, whoever drafted the Irish legislation has made it clearer. It is easier to understand the UK Companies Act by reading the Irish legislation because, somewhere along the line, the drafting of the Irish legislation was better and it is impossible to make the same mistakes made by people who have misinterpreted the UK Act, because the Irish Act is so clearly set out.

All that is needed, as Mr. Butler said, is for institutions to follow the law.