Irish companies have mixed records when it comes to their corporate disclosure practices, a new report from Transparency International has found.
The study of 30 leading firms found they were strongest in the relation to publicly outlining their anti-corruption procedures, but weak when it came to the issue of disclosures around their political engagement.
"Corruption is a barrier to dealing with the world's biggest challenges, including climate change and the recent pandemic," said Catherine Lawlor, Advocacy and Research Coordinator at TI Ireland and co-editor of the report.
"And despite new laws and measures aimed at countering corruption, Irish companies still face corruption-risks arising from failures to disclose conflicts of interest or to adequately protect whistleblowers."
On the basis of the information they publicly disclose, the study measured the degree to which the 30 firms are willing to address corruption related risks.
Ten of the businesses got full marks in the anti-corruption category, while nearly half of them scored over 60% in the whistleblowing category.
However, the mean score in the organisational transparency category was 35% while in the political engagement section, it fell to 26%.
Transparency International found that the firms had disclosed relatively little detail on their corporate structures or dealings with politicians or public officials.
The report recommends that firms adopt enhanced online disclosure practices and increase transparency levels around the structure of their organisation and country by country financial information.
It also says companies should give public details of their charitable and community donations and adopt policies on responsible political engagement.
Whistleblowing policies should also be reviewed, the organisation claims.
"We have a lot of work to do to convince some of the world’s biggest companies about the importance of improving anti-corruption procedures and disclosure practices," said Catherine Lawlor.
"While most large businesses, especially multi-nationals, are aware of their compliance obligations and are sharing more information than used to be the case, there’s still a lot of information that’s not being published that ought to be."
