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The Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, Dara Calleary, has signed the Commencement Order giving effect to section 35 of the Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Act 2021.
With effect from Sunday, 11 June, PPS numbers must be provided for company directors when submitting forms to the CRO relating to the incorporation of new companies, the filing of annual returns and notifying changes of company directors or secretaries.
Minister Calleary said:
"I am pleased to implement this requirement which will enable the CRO to verify the identity of directors and thereby enhance the accuracy of the register of companies. The provision of a PPS number will help to avoid duplication in situations where there may be variations of a director’s name and address. It will enhance CRO efforts to guard against abuse of the register by providing assurance that the information provided relates to a real person."
The Minister added:
"The register of companies contained information on over 287,000 companies (at end 2022) and is a vital resource for a range of stakeholders including those who have a commercial interest, regulatory and enforcement authorities; the media and the general public and any initiatives to safeguard the integrity of the register are welcome. In addition, this provision will facilitate compliance checking of the general requirement under company law that a director may hold no more than 25 directorships at any time."
Section 35 inserts a new section 888A Cases in which director must supply certain data. It provides in subsection (1) that when submitting certain forms to the Registrar of Companies a director of a company shall provide his or her Personal Public Service Number (PPSN), or such other information required by the Registrar. The forms concerned are the application to incorporate a company, an annual return by a company, and a notice of change of directors or secretaries by a company. Subsection (2) sets out the offence for failing to comply with this section.
Directors who do not have a PPS number can apply to the CRO for an identified person number (IPN) and use this number as an alternative to the PPS number.
In accordance with data protection requirements, PPS numbers provided to the CRO will be stored securely in an irreversible hashed/encrypted format and will not be accessible by CRO staff or any other party.
Further information is available on the CRO website.