The State’s accounting watchdog opened four investigations last year into potential legal breaches by auditors or firms while carrying out their work – the most since it started making such annual disclosures in 2020. The Irish Audit and Accounting Supervisory Authority (Iaasa) said in its latest annual activity report that the four investigations, being carried out under the Companies Act 2014, remained open as of the end of last year. A spokesman for the authority declined to comment on the individual cases. “This activity reflects Iaasa’s statutory role in investigating potential breaches by statutory auditors, audit firms and accountancy bodies, and taking action where necessary to protect the public interest,” Iaasa, which is led by chief executive Kevin Prendergast, said in the report. If Iaasa finds against a firm following an investigation it can impose a fine. It can also temporarily ban an individual from performing statutory audits and fine them. As of the end of last year, there were 1,012 approved audit firms and 1,781 approved statutory auditors in the Republic, according to the report. Iaasa has imposed eight fines on individuals since it assumed direct responsibility in 2016 for inspecting audits of so-called public interest entities, such as banks, insurers and companies whose shares or debt are listed on a stock exchange. Five of them were levied in the space of six weeks in early 2023. Most fines have been in the region of €10,500. However, Iaasa imposed a €19,500 penalty in 2023 on a former auditor of the now-defunct Irish unit of Wirecard, the disgraced German payments company that collapsed in 2020.Iaasa also said that it was asked last year to look into two instances of how a professional accounting body handled their own investigation or disciplinary cases. The authority decided against opening an investigation into one of these but the second matter “was under consideration at the year-end”, the report stated.