Newly elected CPA Ireland President, Deirdre Kiely from Mallow.
Mallow woman Deirdre Kiely was elected the new President of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants Ireland (CPA) at the annual general meeting of member
s recently held in Dublin. Deirdre is a qualified CPA accountant, barrister and principal of Kiely & Co. Accountants and Business Advisers. She is a graduate of University College Cork and has extensive experience in the charities and not-for-profit sector, and is a board member of the Social Finance Foundation.
Addressing the CPA Institute following her election, she called on the Government to make good on five year old promises to promote and foster the social enterprise sector in Ireland. According to Ms. Kiely, “Social enterprise has the potential to create 40,000 new jobs and generate an additional €2 billion for the economy, but its growth and development has been hindered by a lack of action on the part of Government.”
Ms. Kiely said that Irish social entrepreneurs were losing out on EU funding because of a lack of coherent Government policy in this area. “The EU has flagged plans to increase the total amount for social enterprises and microfinance for Employment and Social Innovation from €193m to about €1bn under the Employment and Social Innovation programme. But without a coherent Government strategy and structured Government supports in place, the ability of any social enterprise to secure funds from the EU is severely hampered.
“Ireland faces massive problems in healthcare, education, social care, the environment and many other areas”, she said. “These problems are partly the result of enforced cutbacks in public expenditure following the economic collapse of 2008 to 2010. It will take many, many years for spending to be restored but social enterprise could address the issues very quickly if given the opportunity.”