Seanad debates

Wednesday, 16 April 2003

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

 

There are a few issues regarding the Bill to which others have referred which have been the cause of some controversy heretofore. I will share my preliminary thoughts with the House. The first relates to the independence of auditors. Again, we must remind ourselves, as Senator O'Toole so eloquently did, of where we are coming from. We are coming from a position where at public hearings before the Oireachtas subcommittee on DIRT, it became crystal clear that auditors in very large companies – in this case, financial institutions – either had not come across serious non-compliance with the law or did not disclose it in their reports. That was quite rightly the cause of public scandal and the impulse behind the setting in motion the process which brings us this Bill. The bottom line must be that we must be able to say at the end of the process that what we are now putting in place will stop this happening and that, even with the Bill, it cannot continue. I am not totally convinced that that is the case.

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