Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 9 July 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment
Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority: Engagement with Chairperson
2:00 am
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I will make one last point because I am conscious of the time. It is good to hear that IAASA is hiring great people and that there is an attractiveness to the public service and the civil service. I have also worked in a smaller firm, a family practice, and I have seen how the audit makes up such a small portion of smaller accounting firms' businesses. An audit is a cumbersome exercise and you do have to adequately charge for your time. However, it is very difficult for the small to medium firms to compete with the economies of scale that the larger audit clients have. Then the smaller firms are also not able to access a lot of that audit work for fear of breaching those thresholds that would stop them from maintaining their independency, which is obviously really important. Are there any plans to support small to medium accounting firms? Does IAASA provide any guidance or support to smaller firms?