Ms Niamh Muldoon:

As I see it the 1931 Act carried an inference on ownership and that was relied upon, correctly or incorrectly, which carried through to the 2005 Act. The VCI interpreted that in a particular way. When one looks at all the legislation at no stage does it speaks to ownership. It is arguably no different to other legislation for professional regulation but none of the Acts speak to ownership and so the VCI can only reflect the powers it has which are given to it by Members of the Oireachtas.