Major accounting change – Irish views being heard

Change in financial reporting - positive move for Irish companies

Participants at a roundtable meeting with the Accounting Standards Board (ASB) Chairman, Ian Mackintosh, at Chartered Accountants House today heard that the ASB is responding positively to comments made by Irish interested parties to the proposals in its Consultation Paper on the future of Irish accounting standards earlier this year.

Glenn Gillard, Accounting Technical Partner at Deloitte, commented: “The engagement today with the ASB is to be very much welcomed as there are a number of issues that are of concern to Irish entities. Which entities are ‘publicly accountable’ and therefore required to apply full IFRS requirements is of major concern to such entities as credit unions and co-operatives and the ASB’s current thinking to modify this with size exemptions for small entities may be a welcome relief. Ireland is a country with a lot of companies that are subsidiaries of listed companies and other publicly accountable entities. The disclosure reliefs currently being considered for these companies, provided they are not themselves publicly accountable, is also welcome.

Deloitte Ireland is strongly of the view that the expected new regime is a very positive move for Irish companies. A major advantage is that the financial reports of Irish companies will be better understood in international markets and this will assist them on both export markets and capital markets. However, the cost benefit analysis being undertaken by the ASB is important as in the current environment any significant cost of transition would be unwelcome.

With IFRS expected to be required for all but the smallest companies by 2013, directors will have to sit up from now on and pay attention to managing transition smoothly.

The ASB is continuing to engage on the proposals with a full exposure draft of the standard expected in the Autumn and it is imperative that Irish interested parties continue to voice their viewpoint loudly as they did with the consultation paper a few months ago, ” concluded Gillard.

The Deloitte guides for Irish companies, ‘Choosing your GAAP’ and ‘IFRS for SMEs in your pocket’, can be downloaded at www.deloitte.com/ie

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