Seanad debates

Wednesday, 16 April 2003

Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Second Stage.

 

The company law review group, in its report, made various recommendations about simplifying the company law needs of small business but we have not seen that legislation. The emphasis in all the legislation seems to be on increasing regulation, not reducing it. Increased regulation means increased costs to business, either through directly hiring staff to deal with regulatory compliance or hiring consultants to deal with it for them. The cost to business means ultimately loss of competitiveness and a loss of jobs. Each single piece of legislation may not be critical in itself, but the cumulative effect is that those trying to run small businesses and make a living from them are finding themselves spending more and more time filling in forms and complying with State regulations. This Bill again provides the Government with an opportunity to lift the burden on some of those smaller businesses, and perhaps we can do something about this on Committee Stage. The Minister of State might have some preliminary thoughts in this regard when he replies.

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