Government should "bite the bullet on regulation"

The wider Auctioneering profession needs to adopt a set of standards in relation to ethics, education, and ongoing training, and these Standards should be enforced by the Government, the President of the IAVI, Robert Ganly, has said.

Speaking ahead of a campaign to be launched on Monday,18th February highlighting both the IAVI’s own code of ethics and emphasis on education, Mr. Ganly said that the actions of a small number of individuals in the profession had damaged the good name of a majority of honest Auctioneers and had demonstrated the need for a proper regulatory framework.

He drew attention to the fact that the IAVI had the toughest and most rigorous standards for membership of any professional body, and pointed to its compensation fund for members of the public who had been wronged as an example of good practice in the Profession:

“The responsibility of Government is to protect individuals from actions by others which may harm them. In this case, that responsibility has been thrown onto organisations like ours, which has an exemplary record.

However, membership of the IAVI is voluntary and subject to strict conditions, so unfortunately there remain a large number of people operating in the profession who present themselves as qualified to represent your interests when they are not. Further, those same individuals are subject to no regulation whatsoever, and are responsible for the overwhelming majority of bad practice in the profession.

Selling a property is a very specialised skill, which is why we have Auctioneers in the first place. It stands to reason that you should have to have some sort of qualification in the skill you are selling to unwitting members of the Public.

The IAVI has voluntarily set tough standards on ethics, discipline, education, and ongoing training. We have a massive focus on education, in particular.

At the end of the day, we can’t regulate people who aren’t members, - that is the job of Government, and they should act. It is absolutely insane that our Government would sit back and allow the public to be exposed to people who in many cases haven’t the first idea of what they should be doing, and in many more cases, think they can get away with out doing it anyway.

All we can do for our part is highlight those people who are qualified. Our logo should tell the public that the member firm displaying it is qualified to handle their business".

Ends

Contact:

Brendan Bracken, Bracken Public Relations
086 258 6628 / 01 677 3277

Sarah Blunden, Bracken Public Relations
087 328 0835 / 01 677 3277