John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

The matter of the position of auditors of charities was raised by Senator O'Toole in the Seanad and Deputy Ciarán Lynch in the House on Report Stage. The concerns were that the Bill would allow charity trustees to audit their charities. This was not the Government's intention. Instead, the aim was to ensure that where independent auditors of charities were party to offences that such auditors would be regarded as charity trustees in terms of having committed an offence under the Bill and could be prosecuted on that basis.

I fully share the view that a charity trustee should not audit his own charity. This is reflected in section 187 of the Companies Act 1990, under which an officer or servant of a company must not also be its auditor. On reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the provision as it previously stood had the potential to place an unreasonable burden on independent auditors and one that is unnecessary, as auditors are already subject to statutory obligations. I thank Senator O'Toole and Deputy Lynch for their constructive contribution on the issue.

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