Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 14:

In page 22, line 35, to delete ?Directorate? and substitute the following:
"Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority".

This relates to the important function of the Accounting Officer and the audit committee and it is recognised as having been a problem on many occasions in the past. It is why Ms Niamh Brennan, professor of accounting in UCD, was asked to examine this a number of years ago. My colleague and friend, Senator Colm Burke, has raised his concern several times about people without qualifications being in charge of audit and accounting functions. The amendment we tabled on Committee Stage provided that members of professional accounting bodies should be members of the audit committee but it was rejected by the Minster because he felt other qualifications were needed. Protection against this problem is still needed and that is why I have asked that the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, IAASA, should at least vet people's qualifications in order that we do not rely on the opinion of the directorate which we have heard repeatedly is a collection of insiders anyway. Any attempt we have made to prise that open has been resisted. The IAASA is the regulatory body for auditing and accounting and the Minister should seek its opinion to establish whether people are qualified to carry out auditing and accounting of books with tens of billions of euro on them in recognition of the fact that this has been a problem in the past.