Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join with my colleagues in welcoming the Clerk Assistant, Ms Jody Blake back. I commiserate with the Coghlan family and wish Senator Jimmy Harte a speedy recovery.

I wish to be associated with Senator Healy Eames's amendment to the Order of Business. We had a most interesting speech on it by the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. I learned far more from her speech than is apparent from the Bill. I compliment her on all her visits to the House. What is at stake is not an issue between both sides of the House. This is how we regulate accounts and one must be concerned about that. Back in 2008, Ms Karen Erwin, the then chairperson of the regulatory body, the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, commented on the shock to the system which poor accounting standards had imposed, but we have not dealt with that. Rather than changing the way we regulate accounts as a by-product of the Companies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013, we should have it up front with a full discussion and the involvement of people such as Professor Brendan Walsh, the current chair of the IAASA and his predecessor, Ms Karen Erwin.

There is an amount of redacted material on accounts. In addition, the existing regulatory bodies have failed. Every year, the chartered accountants body has been fined by the IAASA. If the State takes on these functions from the professional accountancy bodies, which is what is being sought, will we be liable? Why have we not got anything back for the €64 billion which the bad accounting of Irish banks failed to discover in the case of Ernst & Young and in the case of Anglo Irish Bank, or any of the other banks either? They were all under investigation. The reports for 2011 have that dreaded phrase "redacted", which I hate.

We have to approach the regulation of financial institutions in Ireland in its own context with plenty of time. It is not an issue between both sides of the House. If we let accountants off the hook the public will want to know what Seanad Éireann is doing. They will ask why they voted "No" to the proposed abolition of this House. There are serious issues which the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, highlighted much better than the legislation does. The legislation appears to be fairly benign but the Minister of State's speech is well worth reading. This is an attempt to transfer the burden of regulating accountants from their own professional bodies to us as taxpayers. I have tabled some amendments which we can discuss, if the Leader so wishes. It is such a major point of principle that we should not let bankers or accountants off the hook for the damage they did to this country in 2008.