Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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35. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the grounds on which an unlimited company can apply for an exemption from having to file financial statements with the Companies Registration Office under the Companies (Accounting) Act 2017. [7258/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There is no requirement for an unlimited company to file financial statements unless there is limited liability. Therefore, there are no grounds on which an unlimited company can apply for an exemption from having to file financial statements with the Companies Registration Office under the Companies (Accounting) Act 2017.

The EU Accounting Directive (2013/34/EU), which is given effect in the Companies Act 2014 as amended by the Companies (Accounting) Act 2017, requires companies with limited liability to file their financial statements publicly. Neither EU or Irish accounting law requires companies with unlimited liability to file financial statements publicly. However, where an unlimited company has de facto limited liability then they must comply with the requirement to publicly file financial statements with the Companies Registration Office as for limited companies.

Section 1274 of the 2014 Act sets out the types of unlimited companies, ‘designated ULCs’, that must file financial statements. These include ULCs that are subsidiaries of a limited company or ULCs made up of members who are all limited companies or ULCs that are banks or insurance companies.

The requirements in section 1274(2)(a)(iii) for the filing of financial statements by an ULC that is a holding company of limited liability subsidiaries will commence on 1 January 2022.