Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I do not know but can picture many of them. The review committee on auditing referred to public interest companies, not private companies. That is different and adds a cost. The Minister of State's amendment No. 33 includes the words "establish and adequately resource". That cost will be imposed on the private company competing with other companies not subject to such a stipulation. We are doing this because of one case ten or 12 years ago, to which Senator O'Toole referred, where one large private company was found in the eyes of the Committee of Public Accounts to have done something incorrect, which it did. It seems we are passing a law which will hinder and shackle every private company in Ireland over a certain size, even if they are competing with other companies not subject to this stipulation.

I read an article in a magazine a few days ago which stated similar legislation was being introduced in many countries. However, I could not find one case where a private company was covered. This will be unique. We are now back to where I started today when I spoke about a regulatory impact assessment which we do not have. The Minister of State did not answer my query in that regard. The Government has a policy of saying we should have such an assessment. However, we have not done that in this case. We will now set standards which other countries in the world have not thought of setting. We will impose costs and regulations on private companies which do not have outside shareholders. That is wrong. The Minister of State must rethink this issue.