Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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165. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if the position in relation to section 357 of the Companies Act of 2014 will be clarified, specifically in relation to the exemption which allows each subsidiary to submit the financial statements of the parent company instead of its own as in the case of a company (details supplied). [29006/22]

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Section 357 of the Companies Act 2014 derives from the EU Accounting Directive and provides that a subsidiary is exempted from the requirement to annex its financial statements to their annual return that is filed with the Registrar, if its parent company, that is established under the laws of an EEA state, has provided a guarantee over the liabilities in the financial statements of the subsidiary for the whole of that financial year.

The exemption is a long-standing one and the effect of section 357 has existed in Irish company law since 1986. Many companies own other companies and section 357 recognises the principle that consolidated financial statements should present the activities of a parent undertaking and its subsidiaries as a single economic entity (a group).

By establishing these rules at EU level and harmonising national law governing consolidated financial statements there is comparability and equivalence in the information which parent companies should publish across the EU.

Section 357 also sets out certain conditions that must be complied with in order to avail of this exemption and these include that a copy of the guarantee and notification to shareholders must be annexed to the subsidiary annual return to the Registrar. The parent company consolidated financial statements and audit report must also be included in the return.

The Registrar of Companies has no general power under the Companies Act 2014 to administratively amend the CRO register or to allow amendments to be made to registered documents. Neither does the Registrar have a statutory power to remove registered submissions from the register.