Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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125. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the reason over €2.2 million was surrendered back to the State by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement in 2016, in view of the fact that no prosecutions or convictions were achieved by this office; and her views on whether this represents an agency that is adequately policing white collar crime here. [49408/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Expenditure by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) in 2016 was €2.727m, against a budget allocation of €5.015m.

This allocation was comprised of a pay spend of €2.006m against an allocation of €2.808m and a non pay spend of €0.721m against an allocation of €2.207m.

A significant element of the non-pay allocation provided to the ODCE provides for possible legal costs. These costs, as well as their timing, are difficult to forecast as the ODCE has little or no control over the timing of when the cases will be determined. It is also the case that the ODCE cannot be sure of the outcome of cases in terms of costs orders and it cannot anticipate the scale of costs that other parties may seek. Whilst it is entirely prudent that provision continues to be made to meet legal costs in the ODCE’s subhead, the uncertainty in relation to amount, timing etc. of such costs means that there can often be an underspend in the budget.

The ODCE Annual Report for 2016 points to a number of key successes during the year, as follows:

- Following the examination of reports submitted to the Office by liquidators of insolvent companies, 90 company directors were restricted and 11 disqualified by the High Court;

- 93 Restriction Undertakings were obtained from directors of insolvent companies;

- As an alternative to formal enforcement actions, cautions issued to a total of 61 companies;

- The securing of the rectification on a non-statutory basis, of suspected infringements of the Companies Act 2014, in relation to Directors’ loans in 60 cases, to an aggregate value of €17m approximately;

- 108 directions were issued to relevant parties requiring them to comply with their statutory obligations under company law;

- The submission of 5 investigation files to the DPP for consideration, with recommendations including charges under both company law and the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001;

- 7 demands issued to companies for the production of their books, records and other relevant documents;

- During the year, the register of disqualified, deemed disqualified and restricted persons, as maintained by the Registrar of Companies, were reviewed. Arising from that review, a total of 83 instances were identified where persons appeared to be acting in contravention of Court Orders/legislative provisions. Following intervention by the ODCE, the individuals’ positions were regularised;

- In excess of 1,050 statutory reports and referrals were received from liquidators, auditors, examiners, professional bodies and other regulatory and enforcement authorities. There were 130 internally generated inputs and almost 250 complaints received from members of the public.

- To encourage compliance with company law, the ODCE issued in excess of 16,000 copies of its various publications during 2016.