Chartered Accountants Ireland was established by Royal Charter on 14 May 1888, and is Ireland's largest accountancy body. According to its website, it represents over 40,000 members globally.
Chartered Accountants Ireland is part of the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies and members are authorised to conduct audit, insolvency and investment business work. It is one of Ireland's six Recognised Accounting Bodies, regulated by the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA).
Chartered Accountants Ireland is a founding member of the chartered accountants body, Chartered Accountants Worldwide.
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History
Chartered Accountants Ireland was established under a royal charter in 1888. This original body was named the 'Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland'. The body has been a member of the International Federation of Accountants since 1977.
Organisation
The council is the highest governance organ of the institute. It determines strategy and policy, and consists of 23 members. The bye-laws provide for a geographical spread of council members between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain and for a balance between members in practice and members in business.
Chartered Accountants Ireland supports six district societies in Ireland (Ulster, Leinster, Cork, Mid-West, Western, North-West), one in London and one in Australia (Sydney) and one in the USA.
Operation
Commentary
Representative of Chartered Accountants Ireland sometimes comment on matters such as foreign direct investment, Corporate Social Responsibility, insolvency, taxation, NAMA, budget announcements, and other matters.
Enquiries
In 2007 the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board was established to develop Standards of Professional Conduct and to supervise the compliance of members, member firms, affiliates and students. They initiated an investigation into the "circumstances around the issue of inappropriate directors' loans at Anglo Irish Bank" and into the performance of Ernst and Young. In 2009, independent Senator Shane Ross said the Institute "ranks with the Central Bank of Ireland as the winner of the wooden spoon for watchdogs". The first Chairman of the Regulatory Board, had companies he is a director of, fined a total of €3.35 million by the Central Bank of Ireland, for risk control and reporting failures.
In 2009 Chartered Accountants House on Pearse St., was officially opened by President McAleese, with new resources for its members and conferencing facilities.
An external inquiry team in February 2010 found that the institute's complaints committee had a prima facie case to answer for the conduct of its proceedings and there were further apparent flaws in the accountancy body's disciplinary procedures.
The Irish Times, the country's newspaper of record, in April 2010 raised questions about the role of Institute Members in relation to the crisis affecting the banking sector and an insurance company. Within days, an opinion piece in the respected Sunday Business Post said "what a glorious contribution that body of super-chargers made to the collapse of business and of the entire financial system here and how they have got away with it".
The Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA), the independent body entrusted with overseeing corporate governance in the accountancy profession, in November 2010, fined the Institute of Chartered Accountants €10,000. It described the Chartered Accountants Ireland's complaints committee's behaviour as a "substantive failure and not merely a technical" one.
The next week in November 2010, it was announced that the policing of audits of publicly quoted companies is being taken out of the hands of professional accounting bodies and transferred to the state's auditing watchdog. The move of the role to an independent, state-run body is seen as a more stringent approach to enforcing audit standards. This follows on from an EU recommendation that member states needed to ‘'up their game'’ in the monitoring of public interest bodies.
Education, careers and advocacy
In 2009, Chartered Accountants Ireland introduced a new route to Chartered Accountancy. Originally called 'The Elevation Programme', it is now referred to as the Flexible Route pathway.
The Flexible Route provides students with the option to study and sit exams without undertaking a training contract and gives students a maximum of 8 years to complete all programme requirements. The Training Contract and Flexible Route pathways both have the same entry and qualification requirements and the qualification received on completion is the same.
In 2012, Chartered Accountants Ireland launched a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) initiative to encourage members to promote Ireland as a location for FDI business.