Company Law

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Questions (261)

Pearse Doherty

Question:

261. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment the number of exemptions sought each years since 2015 for the 25 limit on directorships; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33350/25]

View answer

Written answers

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

There is a responsibility on company directors to ensure that they adhere to the requirements of company law. In this regard, section 142 of the Companies Act 2014 (the 2014 Act) limits the number of directorships that an individual can hold at a particular time to 25.

Public limited companies and companies with a certificate that a company has a real and continuous link with one or more economic activities that are being carried on in the State are exempted in reckoning whether an individual has 25 directorships. Where a person is a director of both a subsidiary and its holding company, this is counted as one directorship.

On application by a company, the Registrar may certify that certain categories of companies are exempt including companies that hold licences under section 9 of the Central Bank Act 1971 or companies that fall within any provision (in so far as applicable to a private company limited by shares) of Schedule 5 of the 2014 Act.

The table below provides the number of applications the Registrar received, and the number of exemptions granted, between the commencement of the 2014 Act on 1st June 2015 and 31st May 2025.

YEAR	Applications received	Exemptions granted
2015	254	251
2016	427	427
2017	449	444
2018	734	710
2019	1115	1076
2020	893	864
2021	870	843
2022	1873	1848
2023	1031	1026
2024	1568	1540
2025	761	704

The Minister may also direct that a company is exempted, if the person was director before 18 April 2000; if the Minister was of the opinion that it would result in serious injustice or hardship for the person; or that not giving a direction would operate against the common good. The Minister has never used this discretion.