Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, and the officials in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment for presenting what I term real legislation to the House. I commend the initiative by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, to regulate the accountancy profession.

Self-regulation within the profession did not work. It is claimed by some Senators that self-regulation does work, but it has been proven otherwise. There have been rogue accountancy companies and companies with ambiguous roles within large companies. It was Senator McDowell, I believe, who spoke of transparency. The new rules will impose additional disclosure requirements on companies with regard to fees paid to their audit firms for services other than the audit itself. It is clear to us now that there should be transparency as to whether the audit company is providing other services, such as management strategic plans for the company rather than just doing the audit.