Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

We need to take a coherent approach to imposing regulations on directors. I fully support every measure that improves corporate governance but we should stand back from anything that makes people disinclined to get involved, or is a disincentive to becoming involved. People should be made accountable for gross negligence or wilful default. These are public service measures being imposed on the private sector but there are examples of serious negligence, for example in the Hepatitis C case, for which public servants were not held accountable. We cannot have one approach or ethos for the public service and an entirely different approach for the private sector.

We have moved in recent years to facilitate people in small companies by removing some of the bureaucracy and costs. Small companies should be the engine of our enterprise and job creation. They now have reasonably significant thresholds before being required to submit audited accounts. While that is a good move it means that people do not have access to the professional advice of auditors which they might have in a full audit. I am concerned that if we heap more obligations on companies we will create a situation in which people may unwittingly be in default. I do not know how the Minister can deal with that but it needs to be examined.

I am in favour of keeping the Bill as simple as possible but with impositions for serious negligence or wilful default. People must have the scope to run and operate their companies efficiently and effectively and there is an increasing trend for small family companies to engage outside, independent, non-executive directors. That is a good measure which helps companies because the directors might be people with expertise that the owners or proprietors do not have. We need to make sure that non-executive directors cannot be unjustly held to account for issues of which they were totally unaware. There have been some high profile cases of that happening recently in the banks.

I agree with the thrust of what the Minister is doing but this is a complex area and we need to consider how to do it without affecting the overall objective of increasing the number of private companies and the interest from, and participation of, executive and non-executive directors in a progressive way.