Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of these amendments is to ensure the audit exemption criteria are in line with article 52 of Directive 2013/34/EU which must be transposed into national law by July 2015. The aim of the directive is to simplify the accounting requirements for small companies and improve the clarity and comparability of companies financial statements in the European Union.

The new directive takes a small company or group as a starting point and imposes additional requirements on medium-sized companies and groups and even more requirements on large companies and groups as well as on public interest entities, those essentially being listed companies and banks and insurance undertakings regardless of their size or whether they are listed. This is described as the "think small first" approach. These amendments also make provision for the securitisation requirements arising from the directive and many people will be happy to see them pass after being discussed a great deal on Committee Stage.