Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I wish to clarify that legal obligations still remain on the part of companies. We received approximately 560,000 submissions last year, so any company that is not complying with the Companies Act will be prosecuted. I want to be very clear on that; their obligations still remain.

Regarding how it happened, as far as I understand, it was noted when the CRO was going through an involuntary strike-off methodology that two or three rounds of strike-offs did not appear in the CRO gazette, which they are obviously obliged to do. That was noticed by the CRO, and then it had to go through them manually, which caused a significant issue and a delay with strike-offs.

I agree with the Deputy. We need to be efficient in this area. I have asked to meet the Companies Registration Office to get more information on the issues at hand but I assure the Deputy we will get to the bottom of it.

Critically, the number of submissions we are receiving through the CRO is at record levels and all obligations and legislative requirements still remain on company directors and their companies, across all the offices of the CRO.

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