Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure if Deputy Healy-Rae is coming.

Déanaim comhghairdeachas leis an Aire freisin. I congratulate her on her appointment and wish her well. One never knows where I might bump into her. The last time it was down in the sleepy Nire valley over the holidays. She was most welcome there. I hope she had a good stay at what is a small business of a great business woman. God rest her late husband who was a great friend of mine. They worked very hard. There is a personal touch as well. I hope the Minister and her colleagues enjoyed their stay.

I am happy to speak on the Companies (Statutory Audits) Bill which seeks to transpose EU Directive 2014/56 into Irish law. I note from the document commissioned by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service that an EU audit package updated existing EU law on statutory audits in three main areas: the framework for public oversight; the obligations on statutory auditors when auditing the financial statements of their clients; and the obligations on public interest entities with respect to the appointment of, and interaction with, their auditors.

In particular, the audit directive was aimed at improving audit quality and included measures to strengthen the independence of statutory auditors. The audit regulation was directed at the statutory audits of public interest entities. The mandatory provisions and a number of the optional provisions of both the audit directive and the audit regulation were transposed into Irish law in 2016 through SI 312 of 2016. It is now proposed that the remaining optional provisions of the audit directive and audit regulation, which could not be transposed into Irish law by way of secondary legislation, will be given effect in Ireland by way of primary legislation, that is, through this Bill.

All of this sounds fine and dandy and, indeed, who can argue with a process that attempts to outline in a more specific way the general obligations imposed on public interest entities. I note provision will be made for enhanced reporting requirements that will facilitate the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, IAASA, in carrying out its necessary oversight responsibilities. I worry about all these agencies and quangos. They are mushrooming despite promises by taoisigh and many others that we are going to cut them out. Fine Gael came into government in 2011 stating that it would banish them, but it must have put fertiliser on them because they are spreading and mushrooming the same as a right crop of weeds, and they cannot be stopped. The cost of them all is what worries me, as well as the ineffectiveness of most of them. They do not seem to know what they are at or if they are coming or going or what are their duties or roles. I say that not lightly or flippantly. I say that seriously.

My difficulty, as with so much of the legislation in this area, has to do with enforcement. We can have all the IAASAs we want, and we have acronyms of all shapes and sizes, but if we have no enforcement and they are toothless, fruitless and useless, as are many of the regulators, what good are they? We are just creating optical illusions to the effect that we are doing something about white collar crime and poor audits and accountability. We are ticking the boxes but we are not shaking the boxes or putting our hand down into the boxes to see what is inside. We are just ticking boxes and getting it out the gap for another while. It might be a small while but it is just not effective and there is no comeback or payback to the State and, above all, the taxpayers on the street. Mrs. O'Brien, Tommy O'Neill, Joe Bloggs and whoever are the people who are paying the piper all the time. They are the ones who are aghast to see what has happened in this country with the repeated cycle of bust and boom.

I note from the explanatory memorandum to the Bill that section 931 deals with fair procedures and the possibility of referral to the Director of Corporate Enforcement, with the more significant sanctions for audit breaches being subject to confirmation by the High Court. That is a sentence in itself. We only have to look at the recent experience with our own banks and financial institutions to recognise the massive deficits at the heart of our corporate enforcement system.

There are monumental deficiencies and inaction. There are many financial regulators from the Central Bank down and their staff. There is the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. They all have layers of management, senior, middle and junior and some of the Garda Síochána are involved in their processes as well but what did they achieve? They slept while Rome was burning. There was no accountability and no one held to account, which was worse altogether. The Minister comes from a county with a very strong business ethos and she worked in the credit union. I was amazed when I first travelled to Monaghan and the Border counties at the amount of industry and initiative in private business there from furniture making to mushroom growing, turkeys and poultry farms.

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