John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

The issue that led to amendment No. 37 was raised by Senator O'Toole on Second Stage. Since then I reflected on it and consulted several people. I endorse Senator O'Toole's sentiments that a charity trustee should not audit his or her charity. This is reflected in section 187 of the Companies Act 1990, under which an officer or a servant of a company must not also be its auditor. Although we both proposed the same amendment, there may be an element of cross-purposes involved. Ultimately, however, the outcome would be the same.

The original reasoning behind including an auditor as a charity trustee in section 74 was not to allow charity trustees to audit their own charities but rather to provide that where an offence occurred within a charity and an independent auditor of the charity concerned was a party to the offence, the independent auditor would be regarded as a charity trustee in terms of having committed an offence under the legislation.

On reflection, I have considered that this has the potential to place an unreasonable burden on independent auditors, who are already subject to high standards of regulation. I thank Senator O'Toole for bringing forward the amendment.