Red letter week for accountants

It has not been a good summer for accountants, at home or abroad. Pressure on lawyers in the US to allow the creation of professional services one-stop shops with fee-sharing have been voted down thwarting the plans of accountancy's Big Five to multiply profit streams in the world's biggest marketplace.

Interestingly, the reason given by the US lawyers was to prevent conflict of interest. That suggestion was pooh-poohed by the accountants who already operate such schemes in much of Europe.

However, the publication this week of the Audit Review Group report raised the same spectre once again. It has promised much tougher oversight of accountants after the profession failed to find and report evidence of abuse of non-resident accounts by Irish financial institutions over many years.

With the exception of ACCA, the accountants have been spluttering over many of the recommendations in the report. The ICAI, the largest accountants' body in Ireland, pointed to its newly transparent disciplinary system as evidence of how it was ahead of the Government in adopting best practice.

The truth is that the system was only made more transparent under threat from the Tanaiste Mary Harney to institute tougher regulation of the industry in the first place. The truth is also that, whatever its belated attempts to touch up its image, the accountants as auditors failed to do the job they were there to do . . . bring to shareholder and regulatory attention wrongdoing in the accounts of clients.

It's a bit late now to cry foul.