KPMG audit specialist Conall O’Halloran (pictured) has been elected president of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

O’Halloran was previously nominated by the Irish government to the UK’s Financial Reporting Council’s audit and assurance board and the company law review group, where he served for nine years.

CAI members also elected Paul Henry as deputy president and Pat O’Neill as vice-president.

Addressing the Chartered Accountants Ireland AGM, O’Halloran said his tenure as president would focus on the challenges facing the audit profession, both in Ireland and overseas. He also spoke of working to broaden understanding of the wider role and value that chartered accountants bring to business and society.

“I have recently been looking to our nearest neighbour in the UK and reflecting on the fractured relationship with the regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, and with politicians,” O’Halloran stated. “Many of the reforms recommended by Sir John Kingman’s recent independent review have now been accepted by the FRC and by the profession and politicians generally.

In Association with

“However, the wider review by the Competition and Markets Authority, and the independent review into ‘The Quality and Effectiveness of Audit’ being conducted by Lord Brydon, will be fundamental to our future, and the future of business more broadly. I think we need to be very careful here in Ireland that what works, and indeed what may be required to work in the UK, is not necessarily or automatically right for Ireland.”

O’Halloran also said that access to the profession at graduate level, facilitating more graduates to train in industry and the public sector, and non-graduate entry routes would be a priority in the year ahead.

Vocational Profession

“In Ireland, we are currently very much a vocational profession, where the majority of our graduates who train as chartered accountants come with a business qualification. I feel there is a win-win if we can demonstrate the value of being a chartered accountant to graduates from different disciplines with diverse skill sets and ways of thinking.

“While flexible routes to becoming a chartered accountant have opened up opportunities for people in industry and the public sector, the training in business option has declined.

“When I look to some of Ireland’s corporates there is enormous opportunity in our large companies, particularly those with a global footprint, to train chartered accountants in-house.”

O’Halloran also predicted that college fees for university education will be reintroduced at some stage, making third-level education inaccessible to ever more people.

“While the school leaver route in chartered accountancy has become a thing of the past, I am pretty clear that it will become a thing of the future again and we need to be ready for it,” O’Halloran added.