Corporate Governance in Ireland

“Governance” means the processes by which an organisation is run.

Unfortunately as an accountant who has spent most of his career to date implementing process improvements and developing robust internal control and Governance processes 2024, once again, consisted of a number of lows. It is disconcerting to me that adherence to the norms of acceptable good business practices does not appear to be significantly improving year on year and our regulators appear to be as unsuccessful as ever in imposing their will on the situation.

Personally I would call on our politicians to take the time for a root and branch analysis of these failures and adapt an entirely new approach. We seem to be a country becoming more and more numb to these revelations and very little changes.

Over the past 2 decades we have endured a number of , shall we say, less than optimal application of Good Governance

Late 1990s: Powerscreen accounting issues: This is one of the earliest memories I have of being appalled at the abuse of and disregard for financial and accounting regilations.

2008 Banking Crisis : I may be in a minority but I believe that the politicians took the correct approach for the long term reputation of Ireland in not burning the bondholders. I continue to be amazed at how lightly our banking sector emerged from this debacle, brought about by a spiral of greed and ambition amongst the higher echelons of the banking community, fuelled by a laisse faire attitude amongst our politicans and regulators.

2019/2020 : Governance issues at the FAI. Well documented so I won’t comment further

2023 RTE revelations : Not sure what to say here as most of it defies words or logic, flip flops for all please !

2023: Temple street spinal surgery scandal

2024 : Governance at An Bord Pleanala

2024 : Peter Mc Verry Trust. Very much in the headlines at the minute and a catalogue of how not to apply good Governance and how not to be an active and effective Board of Trustees

Poor Governance usually has at least one of three things at its root :

: Financial Greed

: Egotistical arrogance

: A propensity to cut corners, whether  through apathy or laziness.

More than 20 years on from Enron and Lehman brothers and with subsequent local issues as outlined above we seem to have learned little and made no progress in ensuring the robust application of Good Governance and the punishing of those who choose to wander from the right path.

As a small open economy these failures to adhere to good business practice have an impact on our international reputation. I believe we need to say no more and drive adherence through a zero tolerance approach. Our current responses to these debacles is not robust enough and leaves us prone to repeating the same mistakes of soft touch regulation for generations to come.