Annual_Report2014

Annual Report 2014
Irish Auditing & Accounting Supervisory Authority
6
Supervising the Irish accounting
profession
The Regulatory & Monitoring Supervision Unit of
IAASA is responsible for supervising the regulatory
functions of the nine PABs. The six Recognised
Accountancy Bodies (‘RABs’) comprise a subset of
the PABs, in that the RABs are permitted to authorise
their members and member firms to perform audits
under the Companies Acts. At 31 December 2014
there were:
• 33,706 PAB members resident in Ireland; and
• 1,542 statutory audit firms with offices in Ireland
authorised as statutory auditors.
The principal supervisory activities performed by IAASA
in the area of the supervision of the accountancy and
auditing profession in 2014 included:
• conducting three on-site supervisory visits;
• issuing three supervisory visit reports and one
follow-up visit report;
• holding 12 review meetings with PAB
representatives;
• approving 30 new or revised constitutional
documents;
• completing one statutory enquiry;
• initiating one statutory investigation; and
• approving and renewing applications for third
country auditor registration.
Further details are outlined in Chapter 3 of this Report.
Audit inspections
As outlined in the Chairperson’s Statement, from 2016
IAASA will be responsible for the direct inspection of the
work of the largest audit firms in the State with regard
to the quality of their audits of PIEs. In preparation for
this, IAASA worked with the Department during the year
to secure interim funding to allow pre-implementation
work to commence during 2015. In cooperation with
the Department, IAASA also secured sanction from the
Department of Public Expenditure & Reform to commence
the recruitment of staff in early 2015 for this new function.
Advocacy and advisory
In pursuit of its goal to promote adherence to high
professional standards, in October 2014 IAASA
published its:
• observations on selected financial reporting issues
for issuers’ financial years ending on or after 31
December 2014; and
• review of the application of IAS 7 Statement of
Cash Flows by selected Irish equity issuers.
An updated survey on the use of Alternative
Performance Measures (‘APMs’) by selected equity
issuers was also completed in 2014. This survey covered
10 equity issuers’ annual financial statements and the
results were published in January 2015.
In 2014, IAASA provided advice and assistance to the
Minister and his officials on a range of other matters
including:
• the EU Regulation and amended Directive
reforming the audit market in Europe;
• the EU Accounting Directive;
• amendments to the Transparency Directive
Regulations;
• matters impacting Third Country Auditors;
• Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicles; and
• the Companies Bill 2012 (now the Companies Act
2014).