Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I understand the reason for this being included in the Bill and the reason the legislation attempts to cover the matter, because any director on a board who does not bother reading the papers, does not accept responsibility nor bother attending to his or her duty should be found guilty. On the other hand, many companies are not simple companies. I recall my experience as chairman of An Post, which had 15 board members and which received vast amounts of information. I wonder should any of the 15 board members who missed out on something that was incorrect or wrong be held guilty of a criminal offence. Of course they should have examined every document and covered everything, but it would be far too onerous to infer a criminal offence for every one of those directors. I am not sure what the solution is, because we do not want to relieve directors of having that responsibility.

Senator Cannon has put it correctly. There is an onus on us to ensure Ireland is an attractive place to do business and that it attracts entrepreneurs. We recognise the need for people with ability to join boards and accept responsibility as directors, but that should not be such an onus that it places a threat over them if they make even one slip-up by not covering something. I remember similar legislation to this previously and have thought about the situation in my former company of which I was director for many years. If something went wrong, were all my other colleagues held responsible? If I was the chief executive, I was certainly responsible, because an executive director must accept responsibility. However, that is not necessarily true for non-executive directors, although they have a responsibility to check everything that takes place.

I believe large numbers of people would refuse to take on the responsibility of being directors or to be part of an operation if they felt they would be found guilty of a criminal offence in the case of failing in their responsibility. I understand the need for the legislation in the case of executive directors, but it is too onerous to make it a criminal offence for every director.