Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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238. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if the Companies Registration Office, in addition to having wide and strong powers to impose substantial late filing fees and to strike companies off the register for non-compliance, can also impose additional on-the-spot fines; and if the CRO has utilised this enforcement mechanism to assist in CRO compliance as an alternative to the removal of the statutory audit for very small micro companies and small companies. [20195/18]

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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239. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if the Companies Registration Office has strong and wide-ranging additional powers to prosecute both companies and individual company directors in the District Court for non-compliance with their statutory obligations; and the plans of the CRO in this regard. [20196/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 238 and 239 together.

Section 343 obliges companies to make an annual return to the Companies Registration Office. The requirement for a company to file its annual return on time is an important transparency measure.  The financial statements and other information that accompany the annual return provide important safeguards for third parties such as suppliers, creditors and employees by giving access to financial information in relation to a company.  It is important that this information is provided on a timely basis to be meaningful.

Under section 874 Companies Act 2014, the Registrar of Companies may deliver a notice to a company or person if the Registrar has reasonable grounds for believing that the company is in default in the delivery, filing or making to the Registrar of a return or similar document required under the Companies Act 2014.

A defaulting person or company must, within the period of 21 days following the issue of a notice of on-the-spot fine by the Registrar to that person or company:

- Remedy the default by filing the outstanding annual return(s), and

- Make to the Registrar a payment of the amount set out in the notice.

The defaulting person or company would be prosecuted if the terms of the on-the-spot fine notice are not complied with within the 21-day period.

To date the Companies Registration Office has not utilised this enforcement mechanism as other measures available to it under the Companies Act 2014 have proved to be effective. The measures available to the CRO where a company is in default of its statutory obligations to file are a Court Order under section 797 Companies Act 2014; prosecution under section 865 or involuntary strike-off under Part 12 Chapter 1.

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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240. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the Company Registration Office's plans with regard to the strong and additional wide ranging powers contained in the Companies Act 2014, in particular with regard to the 714-day warning notice under section 79 that can be sent to the CRO before the Registrar of Companies is entitled to bring a section 797 application before the company and the respondent company directors in the High Court as an alternative to the loss of audit exemption. [20197/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Section 797 of the Companies Act 2014 provides that the Court may order compliance by a company or officer who has failed to comply with a provision of the Act and has failed to remedy this default within 14 days after the service of a notice requiring the default to be remedied.  Section 797(3) provides that the Court may make the Order only on application by one of the following: a member, creditor, the Director of Corporate Enforcement, or the Registrar. Section 797(7) provides that nothing in this section shall prejudice the operation of any enactment imposing penalties. I understand that the Registrar has not, to date, taken an action under this section of the Companies Act 2014.

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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241. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if she has taken into consideration the peak-time filing deadline of 28 October each year that clashes with the revenue income tax returns deadline of 14 November 2018 and the consequences for accountants with regard to the role of the accountant in assisting the vast majority of companies with their statutory filings. [20198/18]

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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242. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if a sizeable number of applications made on notice to the Registrar of Companies for the section 343 waiver has raised the mental health issues of accountancy practitioners in dealing with a highly stressful environment of satisfying the statutory requirements and meeting deadlines with taxation and CRO matters. [20199/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 241 and 242 together.

Companies can have an annual return date of up to 9 months after their financial year end. Thereafter companies have up to 28 days to file their annual return with the Registrar of Companies and up to a further 28 days to file their accompanying financial statements.

These are final deadlines and therefore it is open to companies, and their accountants where they engage such a service, to submit this information at any time before this date. In this way it is possible for companies and their accountants to manage the deadlines facing them with regard to their statutory obligations.

Furthermore, I am proposing to simplify the filing process further in the Companies (Statutory Audits) Bill 2017 by changing the current two-step process to a single step and giving companies up to 56 days to file their annual return and financial statements. This means a company with a 31 December year end can file its annual return and financial statements any time before 26 November.

Where a company makes an application to the Court for extension of time to file an annual return it may include any information it considers is relevant to the application on the affidavit to the Court.  It is a matter for the Court to determine the cases brought before it under section 343 of the Companies Act. The Registrar of Companies does not collate information in relation to accountancy practitioners on the basis set out in the Deputy’s question.