Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First, thank the Minister and her officials for forwarding the notes on the 40 amendments she has tabled to what was a complex Bill.

Along with Deputy Kelleher, I have tabled two amendments. A large number of small and medium enterprises, SMEs, and accountants got in touch with us during the last few months. They were concerned about sections 9 and 10 of the Companies (Statutory Audits) Bill 2017. They were unhappy about changes in this Bill which would see District Court judges being allowed only to waive the late filing fees and not to save the audit exemption. To preserve the audit exemption status of the company, an application will have to be made to the High Court, which will be prohibitively expensive for most companies. Therefore, our amendment seeks to maintain the current situation, which would allow companies who have missed the filing deadline due to mitigating circumstances to make an application to the District Court to save the audit exemption.

This is a fair approach to take for most SMEs. I have an issue with amendment No. 3, which provides for the deletion of section 343(7) of the Companies Act 2014. Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil's amendment seeks to retain this subsection while deleting lines 4 and 5 of page 8 of the Companies (Statutory Audits) Bill 2017. We cannot support the Minister's amendment as it goes against our own amendment. In addition, Sinn Féin will not support amendment No. 7. We are happy to continue to support the other amendments tabled by the Minister, and to support the rest of the Bill.

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