Accountants auditing Irish businesses will be required to comply with one of the most onerous regulatory regimes in the world in the autumn.

The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, will introduce new legislation when the Dáil reconvenes after the summer that will impose a new regulatory body to supervise the auditing and accountancy profession.

It will have great powers in terms of intervening in disciplinary hearings and will be able independently to initiate its own investigations and examinations of company accounts.

"The central objective behind this new auditing legislation is to ensure that the regulatory structures governing auditors and accountants is at the forefront of international developments and that there is confidence at both national and international level in the regulation of this important profession," Ms Harney said in the Dáil yesterday.

During a specially convened debate to discuss the Ansbacher report, the Tánaiste said the issues raised went to the heart of our democracy. "The systematic, planned denial of taxes to the State was a denial of the sovereignty of the State. It was a subversion, one could say, of the vote of each citizen, of their equality before the law, of their right to live in a fair society," she said. "It undermined the ability of the State to provide vital public services. It cost us all."

The forthcoming legislation will put the new Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority on a statutory footing. It will also impose more rigorous procedures that will have to be followed by the auditing profession.

One of the most crucial changes will be the requirement for public companies to detail a full breakdown of the amount of money paid annually to its auditors. The price of the audit, non-audit and consultancy work will have to be clearly outlined for shareholders so they will be able to gauge the full financial consequences of the relationship between the auditor and the client.

The legislation is based on recommendations made by a review group established to examine the findings of the DIRT inquiry. That inquiry highlighted the many shortcomings that had allowed hundreds of millions of pounds to be hidden from the Revenue Commissioners at the State's financial institutions in the 1980s and 1990s.