We are now one decade on since the financial crash and one of the key questions at the time was where were the auditors and where were their warnings. It strikes me that the same question can be applied now in the context of the FAI and the scandal around its debts.

Deloitte was its external auditor for 23 years. One of the points of having an external auditor is to have independent eyes on the accounts. Can this really be the case after 23 years of doing the same job for the same organisation? The Financial Reporting Council in the UK states year on year familiarity with clients can lead to accountants taking the same approach even when business conditions change, thereby underlining the need for rotation if good governance is to be prioritised. Financial information which was published recently during the unfolding of the FAI saga showed some startling adjustments to the FAI accounts for previous years. For example, in 2016 an originally reported profit was adjusted from €2.344 million to €66,000. In 2017, a profit in the accounts of €2.8 million was adjusted to the point that it ended up being a loss of €2.9 million. This is in addition to the fact that a Revenue audit in 2019 revealed an underpayment of taxes and, together with interest and penalties, led to an additional liability of €2.3 million. It begs the question as to whether the FAI would have managed to secure the tax clearance certificate it needed to access Government grants.

The Taoiseach was a Minister with responsibility for sports. He knows that Government grants are paid on foot of a tax clearance certificate in addition to audited accounts. Should we now look at a system whereby organisations are required to show evidence of audit rotation with inbuilt time limits for each audit period before a rotation is required? Good governance requires such a system. The UK has introduced a system of grading its audit firms. This is also used to ensure rotation. It plans to publish the grades and past performance of the large audit companies. It has also introduced more powerful audit oversight. The introduction of the grading system was on foot of the collapse of large firms such as Carillion, BHS and Thomas Cook, proving the UK has taken lessons from the financial scandals. We must do the same.

Does the Taoiseach accept there is an issue with the same external audit firm having an audit contract with the same organisation for 23 years or anything near it? The EU statutory audit regulations of 2016 are supposed to introduce this and I do not understand why it has not happened. Will the Taoiseach support making such a rotation system a prerequisite for Government grant funding in addition to tax clearance certificates?

I thank the Deputy. I do not want to cast aspersions on any particular audit firm, nor on the many thousands of very good people who work in that particular firm, but I do think the Deputy has asked a good question and makes a very good point. It is a principle of good corporate governance that organisations should not be audited by the same people forever and ever and ever again. It is certainly something that Sport Ireland and other public bodies should examine as to whether it is made a condition of Government grant aid that auditors are rotated after a period of time.

The same applies to board members. We often see a situation in a lot of organisations that we fund, whether charities, sporting bodies or local taskforces, that the same people are on the board for ten, 20 or 25 years and this is not good corporate governance either. There should be a rotation of board members too. They are definitely areas where the Government could be more active in requiring turnover of auditors and turnover of board members as a condition of funding in future.

With regard to the independent audit being done, it was provided to Sport Ireland and the Minister and has been passed on to An Garda Síochána. The Office of the Director for Corporate Enforcement has also been notified. The purpose of the audit was to get a clearer picture of the financial and governance issues in the FAI and to chart a course for the association to deal with the serious failings in order to restore confidence in public funding to football in Ireland. The board of Sport Ireland considered the report on 27 November and welcomed that the audit found that State funding given to the FAI was expended for the purposes it was given.

That is an important point. We should reassure taxpayers and the public that the taxpayers' money that was given to the FAI was used for the purpose intended, including participation, anti-racism, women in sport and all the other things that Government funds. The independent audit confirms that public money was not misappropriated.

The Sport Ireland board approved the establishment of a liaison group between Sport Ireland and the FAI to prepare and agree a detailed implementation plan for all of the recommendations of the KOSI report. The board will continue to monitor the progress of reform in the FAI and Sport Ireland will continue to support the association to take the necessary steps to restore public confidence. The Minister, Deputy Ross, and the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, believe the most urgent priority now for the FAI should be the appointment of four independent directors, new faces sitting around the top table of Irish football. Therefore, it is important that the board, under the leadership of the independent chairperson, moves quickly to fill the CEO vacancy and to satisfy the concerns of all stakeholders that the new CEO should be independent of any current or previous involvement with the FAI.

I agree on the need to appoint those independent board members and chairperson. As new appointees, they will need to be given a chance. They are in a very difficult situation. The introduction of a rotation of audit should not be exclusive to sport. It is good practice. It will not be unique to sports that there are failings by virtue of the fact that there is too much familiarity. A European Union statutory audit regulation was introduced in 2016 that provides for mandatory rotation over a long timeframe. Why does that not apply in this case? It would have forced a change of auditors and thus there would have been a fresh review at an earlier stage.

I honestly do not know why it does not apply in this case but I will check that out and provide the Deputy with a more detailed reply. It may well be - I am only guessing - that the directive applies to bodies that are largely publicly funded whereas this is a body that receives only a small proportion of its funding from the Government. That is just my guess because that is often the way European directives work. They apply to largely or majority funded bodies, not ones that only receive a portion of their funding from the State. As I said, I will check it out. I will ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to examine the wider issue that if public money is provided through a third party to voluntary bodies, charities or NGOs, surely it is appropriate that they are properly audited and rotate their auditors. A bit like the FAI, it would be appropriate that they should rotate their leadership, chairman and board members and not have the same people in charge for ten, 20 or 30 years, which is just bad corporate governance practice, as, I think, we will all agree.