Members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAI) could face a significant increase in their annual subscription rates from next year as the institute tries to build up its reserves. ICAI reserves are now at "an unacceptably low level", according to chief executive Mr Brian Walsh.

At the end of 2000, the ICAI had reserves of about £1 million (€1.27 million).

Reserves have been depleted by the costs associated with its ongoing internal Blayney and DIRT inquiries and the rising costs of regulating its members.

The council of the ICAI will meet next month to consider the options for increasing reserves to £5 million over the next five years.

"We will look at what we need to do and at the options available to us," Mr Walsh said. "We possibly could recover some of the costs that have arisen through the internal inquiries but the costs for all professional bodies of regulating members and of protecting the public interest have risen dramatically," he added.

Under the new supervisory regime, the institute's share of the costs of the new Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA) have not yet been decided but are likely to be more than £200,000 per annum, he added.

At the September meeting, the council will review the ICAI's approach to self-regulation "with particular focus on the ongoing costs involved and the possible options for the future," he said.

The institute has only two options for building reserves - recovering costs associated with the internal inquires or raising revenue directly from its members.

But the 12,000 ICAI members will be able to vote on any proposal to increase annual subscriptions. Any proposal to increase subscriptions would be put to a vote of members in December, Mr Walsh said.

Current annual subscription levels vary according the category of membership: associate members, those qualified less than 10 years, pay an annual fee of £140 while at the top of the scale fellows in practice pay £450 a year.

It was too early to speculate on the size of any increase, he said, since the institute did not yet know what recovery of costs, if any, it would get when the internal inquiries were concluded.

The institute had incurred costs of more than £2 million on the Blayney and DIRT inquiries to date, he said.

The institute could recover a significant portion of the costs of the inquiries if costs were awarded against the members under investigation.