The new boom must have tighter controls

IT would be a grave error to downplay, in any way, the importance of the role of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement as a vital watchdog of the State.

Its mission, after all, is clear and unequivocal – to oversee and improve, where it sees fit, the environment that surrounds compliance when it comes to corporate activity within the economy.

It exists to ensure that all aspects of the Companies Act are adhered to at all times. Furthermore, it has the power to call to account anyone who disregards the law.

It is to be welcomed, therefore, that the ODCE has now staffed up at senior accountancy level so as to be properly equipped to meet its obligations.

It is a pity, however, that it has taken some three years to get these jobs approved and the relevant people appointed.

Nonetheless, while the failures of the past in relation to critical corporate governance issues in the wake of the Celtic Tiger left many questions unanswered – and others answered unsatisfactorily – now, as we witness a visible upturn in the economy and leave the grim recession years behind us, it is crucial that the ODCE is fully operational and ready to play its part in holding people to account, right now, and into the brighter economic future.

We must never again allow any corporate structure to not only play by its own rules and run roughshod over our society but to get away with it. A properly staffed and resourced ODCE can ensure that.

Yes, the ODCE has brought people to book in previous years – both by way of disqualification from particular business operations and also through the criminal courts.

However, that said, there was too often the sense that it was too little, too late.

Now, with more appropriate levels of expertise available, there is no reason whatsoever why all public monies that belong to the public purse should not be recouped, without fear or favour, for the benefit of the State.

There is no reason to believe that the ODCE will not carry out the specific job of enforcement for which it was established in the first place.