Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI) has commissioned a report to "unpick" and "debunk" the position of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation that there is no need to regulate the term "accountant".

The CAI, which has 23,000 members, commissioned FTI consulting to challenge the view of the department that there was no need for the term to be given statutory recognition.

The Department of Enterprise told the CAI in a letter earlier this year that it said it had decided not to “support regulating the term ‘accountant’” for a number of reasons including “the fact that the term was not protected in most other EU states – in particular in the UK [and] the lack of data quantifying the detriment to the consumer”.

It said there were potential “adverse” consequences to regulation. “These include added costs to business, increased cost of regulation and compliance, barriers to entry, anti-competitiveness, inhibition of the market, and the continuing existence of good practitioners who do not meet the new requirements.”

In a 12-page report FTI disputed the barriers put forward by the department to the “potential statutory recognition of the term ‘accountant’ in Ireland.”

The financial services consultants said it carried out a consumer survey of 1,001 adults that found 80 per cent of Irish people believed accountants could only use that title if they had a formal qualification.

The survey found that 65 per cent of those surveyed “expect accountants to be subject to formal industry and legal regulations”, and that 68 per cent were “unaware that anyone in Ireland can call themselves an accountant”.

FTI said 88 per cent of those surveyed agreed this was a “consumer protection problem”.