Accountancy body urges more funding for IFSRA

The Government has been urged to invest in the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) by the newly elected president of the Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants.

Mr John Casey said increased investment would enable the authority develop greater expertise, and help it deliver better regulation.

He said the society supported the creation of a world-class regulatory and compliance environment.

However, the sheer complexity of the regulatory environment was the biggest challenge to achieving first-class compliance.

"Within the financial services, we are grappling with international and domestic regulation as diverse and complicated as Sarbanes Oxley, Solvency II, Companies Act 2003, etc. The increase in the regulatory requirements is driving the expansion of the compliance function."

Mr Casey, president and chief operating officer of reinsurance company nSpire Re Ltd, pointed out that a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey on compliance in the Irish financial services sector found that many chief executives and compliance officers were concerned about the shortage of expertise in IFSRA and the challenges this represents to both the regulator and the industry as a whole.

"IFSRA itself has acknowledged that the quality of supervision that any regulator can provide largely depends on the technical competence of its personnel and has committed to focusing on developing highly skilled and adaptable staff. However, they must also have specific industry knowledge."

He called on the Government to invest in IFSRA so that it can immediately implement a fast-track strategy to expand its level of resources and develop its expertise.

This, he said, would enable the authority to deliver an effective consultative process with the Institute of Chartered Accountants and other institutions, manage the upstream regulatory risk, and improve its responsiveness to industry.

Mr Casey said the Government needed to invest heavily in education if Ireland was to retain its high level of inward investment from multinational firms.

"There is potentially a significant threat to inward investment in Ireland by international companies if the supply of suitably qualified professionals is not addressed. This investment could transfer to other countries," he warned.