Accountants too busy to get their house in order

The glacial pace at which the accountancy profession has responded to its failings was highlighted by UCD accounting Professor Éamonn Walsh at the banking inquiry yesterday. He pointed out that the same flawed standards that resulted in the banks not revealing the true horror of their property lending are still in place today.

His conclusion that were Anglo Irish Bank audited today the results would be largely the same as they were in 2007 and 2008 is worrying to say the least.

The profession would argue that although the rules are unchanged, they have altered the way they approach audits to reflect the deficiencies. Walsh did acknowledge this but did not seem to set that much store by it all the same. This is a pretty damning indictment, given his day job.

There is no doubt that accountancy has a credibility problem and business is more and more inclined to question the value of expensive audits.

Their statutory basis, which in effect guarantees the profession a steady stream of work, is also starting to look more than a little anachronistic.

The problem is compounded by the fact that none of the firms whose audits turned out to be so spectacularly wrong has suffered. If anything, the profession is booming as it hoovers up the well paid advisory work associated with cleaning up the mess.

This leaves it too busy, it seems, to sort out the accounting standards which played such a role in the catastrophe. New standards are due to come into effect in 2018, assuming all goes well. By that time the horse, will not so much have bolted as married, raised a family and be on its way to the burger factory.