New supervisory structures for the accountancy profession in Ireland and Britain, which will come into effect over the next year, should not imperil the 32-county status of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, its new president, Mr Henry Saville, warned yesterday.
"The accountancy professions in Ireland and Great Britain have been closely linked for centuries. The new structures being put in place have broadly similar objectives. It is essential that their work is co-ordinated so that a body such as the ICAI is not being penalised because it is representing and regulating members," Mr Saville told the Institute's a.g.m.
In the context of the developing North-South and EastWest relations between the Irish and British Governments and the Northern Ireland Assembly, co-operation in this area should be a political priority, Mr Saville said.
"It would be a travesty if a failure to co-operate and coordinate threatened partition on a professional body like the ICAI which has been in existence since 1888," he said.
Mr Saville, a native of Dublin and a partner in KPMG in Belfast, was elected president yesterday. The a.g.m. also elected Mr Adrian Burke as deputy president and Mr James Hunt as vice-president.
