You couldn't quite feel love in the air at Deloitte's recent global get-together in Dublin, but there was definite evidence of a group hug of sorts.

At the centre of all the good feeling was Bill Parrett, a mild-mannered career accountant who just happens to find himself heading one of the four biggest financial advisory firms in the world.

He was in Dublin to lead a strategy event, where 200 of the firm's most senior client-facing staff were being briefed on where the business is going. Such occasions are of fundamental importance to a firm such as Deloitte, which operates in almost 150 countries.

They allow senior staff to mingle, both with each other and with their ultimate boss, as all try to get on to and stay on the same wavelength.

Parrett is a big fan of flat structures and has repeatedly in the past denounced what he calls the "imperial CEO". This is an individual, he says, who refuses to allow for different viewpoints and challenges to his or her strategy. Parrett, a rather low-key individual, veers far in the opposite direction.

Having joined a predecessor of Deloitte almost four decades ago, he has seen it all when it comes to changes in the way business is done. He acknowledges, however, that the change to beat all others has been the recent entry of regulators into a profession that previously regulated itself.

This leads to a new "intensity of responsibility" for accountants, he says, quickly adding that he is by no means "afraid" of regulation in its own right. There are, after all, positive aspects to the shift, such as the possibility that confidence might be restored to the accountancy profession.

The problem, in Parrett's view, is that systems of regulation remain diverse across the world, making life difficult for global firms such as Deloitte. He admires, for this reason, former minister for finance, Charlie McCreevy, who is spearheading harmonised regulations in his role as Internal Market Commissioner.

The regulation issue is a huge one for companies such as Deloitte, where the cost of complying with the rules has quadrupled over the past five years.

"We have no choice," says Parrett, with the air of a man who has seen it all before.

He accepts that change has been coming particularly thick and fast over the past five years or so but points out that this has always seemed to be the case throughout his 38-year career.

He recalls his first meeting with the then chief executive of Deloitte, remarking that even back then, there was much talk of the "accelerating pace of change". The only difference now, in Parrett's view, is that communications networks are better and the world seems smaller.

"Any little change in regulations becomes magnified and becomes immediate," he says. suggesting that the only constants amid the tumult can be integrity and ethics. It is this approach that Parrett wants to see trickling down to all of Deloitte's 120,000 employees around the world. This is his firm's way of getting around the differing approaches to regulation in differing markets.

"Our role is not to promulgate world standards, our role is to live up to them."

Parrett's comments bear particular resonance in light of the rough few years accountants have been having of late. Enron started it all off, but there has since been a ready stream of companies willing to take up the scandal baton.

Looking back on Enron in a week where the conviction of its auditor, Andersen, for obstructing justice was reversed, Parrett says he was always uneasy at the speed at which the company was brought down. "Governments must understand the unintending consequences of their actions. The demise of Enron didn't need to happen," he says.

Another ruined giant which may be more prominent in Parrett's thoughts is Parmalat, the Italian food company that fell to its knees amid an accounting scandal at the end of 2003. Deloitte is being sued by the Parmalat bankruptcy commissioner, Enrico Bondi, in connection with its junior audit role at the company, with the case still at an early stage.

Parrett is at pains to point out that the accusations against Deloitte have not been of fraud. In fact, he said, Deloitte discovered the fraud a couple of years after being appointed to the firm.

The problem, he says, is that many expect auditors to be able to stop fraud before it happens. Needless to say, Deloitte is vigorously defending the action. As for the scandals, Parrett says it would be "naïve to believe that we've had hundreds of years of scandals and that we won't have any more".

On a happier note, a look at Deloitte's financials would suggest that the big, bad scandalous world out there has done little to dent performance. Last year, global revenues across the company's activities rose from $15.1 billion (€12.35 billion) to $16.4 billion. In the 12 months just ended, they are expected to hit the $18 billion mark.

In the Republic, which has not escaped international financial scandals in recent times, revenues have also been healthy of late. The most recent Finance magazine survey of accountancy firms estimated that fee income at Deloitte's Irish operations rose by 16 per cent to €87.3 million in 2004. This Irish business - in Dublin, Cork and Limerick - draws about one third of its revenues from audit, about 29 per cent from tax, about 24 per cent from consulting and about 12 per cent from corporate finance.

Across all of these headings, the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) delivers about 8 per cent of business.

Parrett says he does not really take account of tales of Dublin becoming the wild west of finance (helped along this week by the Cologne Re debacle), preferring instead to focus on the bigger picture. He has, after all, seen it all before.