Is this the worst Irish business/professional website?

See website.

First of all, it 'grabs' your PC & pops up a dialog box to tell you how proud they are to have got IAASA approval - this is the online equivalent of entering their reception area to be grabbed by your coat collar and have a message shouted into your face. Then they use these gimmicky fading transitions to move from page to page, with no consistency around the colour or positioning of their background.

Then they bring me to a page about today's presentation of an Honorary Fellowship to be given to Bertie today (it's amazing what an uncompleted course of study at the LSE can get you) with no detail or picture or explanation. No 'Contact Us' page, unreadable colour combinations on their Links page, an incredibly useless with no logo/background.

Who are these people? How much did AIB pay them to sponsor their website? Was the website builder in secondary school at the time?

It would be helpful if their website gave the background and history of the Society, but this is how I understand it and I am open to correction.

The 1963(?) Companies Act brought in the requirement for auditors of companies to be members of professional bodies. The recognized bodies at the time were the Institute of Chartered Accountants and The Certified Association.

So what about the guys who were acting as auditors who were not qualified? Well they got an exemption to continue acting as auditors. These guys got together and formed the Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The CPA then started requiring new applicants to pass exams. These were considerably easier than ACCA or ACA but have got more difficult easier.

So in the eighties I think, the unqualified accountants formed the Insitute of Incorporated Public Accountants. Bizarrely, they managed to persuade Mary Harney to recognize them for audit purposes. Some of the other firms sought a High Court review of the decision on the grounds that their training was not adequate, but the High Court confirmed the Minister's decision. So they have the same rights and authority as chartered accountants and certified accountants.

From a practical point of view, most employers would not value the qualification as much as the others.

Brendan

In all fairness I've seen worse websites out there

Why has this particular site offended you so much? Did they do something to offend you? or are you usually this strict on website usability??

"First of all, it 'grabs' your PC & pops up"
>> fair enough - that’s a bit tacky, but its direct and they get their point across

"No 'Contact Us' page"
>>

"unreadable colour combinations on their Links page"
>>I can read it, its not all that bad.

"an incredibly useless structures page with no logo/background"
>> their image links are broken, which is probably due to the use of spaces in the files names "%20" or something minor.

ok - I've since viewed the site using Internet Explorer (I used Opera first time around). That whole transitional thing is really annoying - not something I would advice someone to use.

Yes there are many flaws with the site - but I don’t think its all that fair to publicly humiliate the company\site cos their designer didnt do a good job.

Yes - it seems strange to single out this website. I certainly don't consider this a "Great Financial Debate"... I didn't notice anything major untoward when I viewed it in FireFox other than the admittedly annoying and unintuitive (OK or Cancel what!?) message box popup at the start. Some of the content is a bit crap all right but I've seen worse. FireFox didn't display the transition/dissolving effects. Even if the website design/implementation is poor I would also be inclined to criticise Microsoft for implementing in some versions of Internet Explorer non-standard HTML/CSS features such as RevealTrans instead of sticking to agreed standards.

I think it is a very bad website and I understand Rainyday's exasperation. Why not open it into a discussion of the worst Irish website? what would be a good word for the opposite of the Spiders?

And I agree it's not a Great Financial Debate, so I have moved it to LoS.

I guess the link and professionalism of the designers email address at the botton indicates alot................

I thought the IPA satnds for the Institute of Parking Attendents Well that is what the other accountants figure anyway- it's for people not clever enough to get a proper accountancy qualification

I thought the IPA satnds for the Institute of Parking Attendents Well that is what the other accountants figure anyway- it's for people not clever enough to get a proper accountancy qualification


Nah thats CPA...Car Park Attendants