Call for longer sittings of Carb tribunal

The tribunal taking place in the offices of the Chartered Accountants Ireland in Dublin, which is hearing matters to do with Wexford accountant and property scheme promoter Alan Hynes, is a slow-moving beast.

The inquiry opened in February for a few days, sat again for a few days in March and again for three days this week, and still not all the evidence has been heard.

Yesterday the chairman of the three-member tribunal, JP McDowell, suggested that when the tribunal resumed, on May 12th, for a two-day sitting, it might put in some “lengthy days” in a determined attempt to finish the hearings.

As matters stand the tribunal has been sitting from 9am to 5pm, which is a long session for such processes, so the May sittings look like being real bruisers.

Hynes is represented by Alan Cormack and a firm of solicitors, while the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (Carb), which has presented the complaints to the tribunal, is represented by Brian Farren and a number of solicitors.

Stenographers are in attendance and the room is well-populated with box files filled with folders of A4 pages.

Hynes’s wife, Noreen, attends most days, as do a small number of former investors in Tuskar Asset Management plc (TAM), who are among the complainants to Carb.

The end result may, or may not, be disciplinary action against Hynes for breaching the codes of ethics of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Substantial costs
Given that the inquiry into the complaints by Carb, which eventually led to the hearings lasted five years, and that the lawyers involved are writing back and forth to each other in the periods between the sittings, the costs involved are no doubt substantial.

They will have to be met by the institute, which depends for its funding from its members.

A note in the next set of the institute’s audited accounts will no doubt shed more light on the matter.