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
Mr. Kevin Prendergast:
I will make two brief points. We try to drive improvements in audit qualities and national regulators. As part of the individual conversations I have with the largest firms, I meet the managing partners every year. We talk about the attractiveness of the profession and attracting and retaining quality staff. At global forum level, we have a schedule of emerging issues we discuss as global regulators. One of those is the attractiveness of the profession. If you do not get good people in and keep them, that is going to impact on audit quality. In fairness to the profession, we know it is also trying to address this. The profession realises the old model, as Ms Kennedy referred to it, just does not sell in the current environment.