Privacy Policy

This privacy notice explains how Morrissey McCrann & Co. collects, uses and protects personal data in connection with our professional services and communications, including enquiries through our website.

It applies to clients, prospective clients and other individuals whose personal data we process in connection with our services, including directors, employees and representatives of client organisations.

References to “the client” mean the person or organisation engaging us. References to “you” and “your” mean the relevant client or individual, as the context requires. References to our engagement letter mean the engagement letter applicable to the particular client and services concerned.

1. Definitions

In this Privacy Notice the following definitions shall apply:

“Client Personal Data” means any personal data provided to us by a client, or on a client’s behalf, for the purpose of providing our services pursuant to our engagement with that client;

“Controller” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that, alone or jointly with others, determines why and how personal data is processed;

“Data Protection Legislation” means all applicable privacy and data protection legislation and regulations including the General Data Protection Regulation EU 2016/679 as supplemented by the Data Protection Act 2018 together with other laws which relate to privacy and electronic communications;

“Data Subject” means an individual to whom personal data relate;

“Joint Controllers” means two or more controllers that jointly determine why and how personal data is processed. They must agree their respective responsibilities for compliance with data protection legislation in a transparent manner, except where those responsibilities are determined by applicable European Union or Member State law;

“Personal Data” means information relating to—

1. an identified living individual, or
2. a living individual who can be identified from the data, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—
   1. an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or
   2. one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual;

“Processing” of or in relation to personal data, means an operation or a set of operations that is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, including—

1. the collection, recording, organisation, structuring or storing of the data,
2. the adaptation or alteration of the data,
3. the retrieval, consultation or use of the data,
4. the disclosure of the data by their transmission, dissemination or otherwise
5. making the data available,
6. the alignment or combination of the data, or
7. the restriction, erasure or destruction of the data;

“Processor” means an individual who, or a legal person, public authority, agency or other body that, processes personal data on behalf of a controller, but does not include an employee of a controller who processes such data in the course of his or her employment;

“Special Categories of Personal Data” means—

1. personal data revealing—
   1. the racial or ethnic origin of the data subject,
   2. the political opinions or the religious or philosophical beliefs of the data subject, or
   3. whether the data subject is a member of a trade union,
2. genetic data,
3. biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying an individual,
4. data concerning health, or
5. personal data concerning an individual’s sex life or sexual orientation.

2. Who We Are

This privacy notice provides you with details of who we are and how we collect and process your personal data.

This is the privacy statement of Morrissey McCrann & Co. whose place of business and registered address is 1 O’Curry Street, Limerick:

Morrissey McCrann & Co. “the Firm” (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice), is a data controller due to our professional obligations which oblige us to take responsibility for your personal data.

Where a client is also a data controller in respect of personal data supplied to us, the client and Morrissey McCrann & Co. are separately responsible for their respective processing activities. They do not become joint controllers merely because the client engages the Firm.

Our email address is: info@mmcco.ie

Our postal address is: 1 O’Curry Street, Limerick

Our firm’s GDPR owner is Edmond Hanley

We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights please contact Edmond Hanley.

It is very important that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please let us know if at any time your personal information changes by emailing us at info@mmcco.ie.

3. The Data That We Collect About You, The Purpose For Which We Collect It And The Grounds Upon Which We Process It

Personal data means any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymised data.

For the purposes of this privacy notice the firm provides the following services:

• Accounts preparation
• Bookkeeping
• Audit assignments
• Taxation compliance and advisory services
• Business advisory services
• Company secretarial services
• Payroll services

Where a client provides Client Personal Data to us, the client must ensure that:

1. the relevant individuals have been given the necessary information about how their personal data will be used;
2. the client has a lawful basis for providing the personal data to us, including consent where consent is the applicable lawful basis; and
3. the client has complied with the applicable requirements of data protection legislation.

We shall only process your personal data:

• In order to provide our services to you and perform any other obligations in accordance with our engagement with you;
• In order to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations; and
• Where it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests and those interests are not over ridden by the data subjects’ own privacy rights.

We may process the following categories of personal data about you:

• Engagement Data includes any data which you may provide to us in order to assess whether we are in a position to act for you in relation the agreed services, and, in the event that we are and are willing to do so, the information we need for money laundering identification purposes in advance of formally agreeing to provide the agreed services. It also includes communication and other data generated in the course of providing the agreed services for which we have been engaged. We process this data to supply our services and to act for you as your auditor/accountant. Our lawful grounds for processing Engagement Data are the performance of a contract where the individual concerned is a party to that contract, compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations, and our legitimate interests in providing the agreed services where those interests are not overridden by the individual’s rights and freedoms. We will only ever process your engagement data for the purpose for which we have been retained, on the basis which you instruct us to act on your behalf on that service and to retain a record of the engagement data to comply with our legal and Institute/Association compliance obligations.
• Communication Data includes any communication that you send to us whether that be through any contact forms on our website, through email, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you may send us. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuit or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to provide the agreed services for which we have been engaged.
• Personal Contact Data includes data such as your name, title, address, email address, phone number and contact details. We process this data to communicate with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuit or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records, to grow our business and remain in contact with you and to provide the agreed services for which we have been engaged.
• Marketing Data We do not currently send marketing communications. If we introduce these in future, Marketing Data may include your contact details and preferences regarding newsletters, business updates or information about our services. We will process this data on the basis of consent or, where permitted by law, our legitimate interests in promoting our services. We will comply with applicable electronic-marketing requirements and provide a means of opting out.

Special Categories of Data

Special Categories of Data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic data and biometric data used to uniquely identify an individual.

Personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences is subject to separate restrictions under Article 10 of the GDPR. We will process such data only where authorised by applicable law and subject to the required safeguards.

We need to collect the following Special Categories of Data in order to provide the agreed services for which we have been engaged. For example, some data regarding employees, their spouses, children and dependent relatives may be processed for the purposes of calculating personal tax credits and allowances. Details of trade union membership of employees may be processed in order to calculate deductions from payroll.

We process special categories of personal data only where we have both a lawful basis under Article 6 of the GDPR and an applicable condition under Article 9. Where processing is necessary to fulfil rights or obligations under employment or social welfare law, we rely on Article 9(2)(b), together with section 46 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the required safeguards. For other processing, including personal tax services involving health information, we will obtain the individual’s explicit consent unless another applicable Article 9 condition permits that processing.

Where we are required to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of the contract between us and you do not provide us with that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the agreed service for which we have been engaged (for example, to continue to act for you in Revenue enquiries). If you don’t provide us with the requested data, we may have to cease to act for you but if we do, we will notify you at the time.

We will only use your personal data for a purpose it was collected for or a reasonably compatible purpose if necessary. In case we need to use your details for an unrelated new purpose we will let you know and explain the legal grounds for processing.

We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

We do not carry out automated decision making or any type of automated profiling.

4. How We Collect Your Personal Data

We may collect data about you by you providing the data directly to us (for example by filling in forms in our offices or by sending us emails and correspondence by post or by speaking with us on the telephone and in meetings). We may collect data from third parties who you authorise us to obtain the data from on your behalf (for example the Revenue Commissioners, the Companies Registration Office, financial institutions or another professional or adviser).

5. Marketing Communications

Our lawful ground of processing your personal data to send you marketing communications is either by your consent or our legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

We will send electronic marketing communications only where you have consented or where applicable law permits us to do so without consent. Where we rely on the existing-customer exception, communications will relate to our own similar services, and we will comply with the applicable conditions and time limits. You will be given an opportunity to opt out when your contact details are collected and in every subsequent marketing communication.

We will not share your personal data with any third party for their own marketing purposes without your express consent.

You can request us to stop sending you electronic marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.

You can request us to stop sending you marketing message by post at any time emailing us at info@mmcco.ie, by writing to us at 1 O’Curry Street, Limerick or by phoning us at 061-313321.

If you opt out of receiving marketing communications this opt-out does not apply to personal data provided in connection with a matter on which we are acting or have acted on your behalf and are obliged to retain a record of for the purposes of complying with our legal obligations.

6. Disclosures Of Your Personal Data

We require service providers acting as processors on our behalf to protect your personal data, process it only for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions, and comply with applicable data protection legislation. Other recipients, including regulators, public authorities and independent professional advisers, may act as separate controllers and process personal data under their own legal and professional responsibilities.

7. International Transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

8. Data Security

We have put in place reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know such data. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

9. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Our normal policy is to retain accounting records for six years after the end of the accounting period to which they relate. Audit documentation, anti-money laundering records and other engagement records are retained for the periods applicable to those records under legal, regulatory and professional requirements. Records may be retained for longer where necessary in connection with an ongoing enquiry, dispute or legal claim, or where they remain relevant to continuing work.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for legal know-how, research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

10. Your Legal Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. These include:

• The right to Access – you have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that personal data.
• The right to Rectification of your personal data – you have the right to request that any inaccurate data that is held about you is corrected, or if we have incomplete information you may request that we update the information such that it is complete.
• The right to Erasure – you have the right to request us to delete personal data that we hold about you. This is sometimes referred to as the right to be forgotten.
• The right to Object to processing and restrict processing – you have the right to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes, or to object to our processing of your personal data for particular purposes.
• The right to Data portability – you have the right to request us to provide you, or a third party, with a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used machine readable format.

This privacy notice explains how we process personal data and the lawful grounds upon which we do so. Reading this notice or accepting our engagement terms does not, in itself, constitute consent to processing. Where consent is required, we will seek it separately.

If we are processing personal data based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing which took place prior to its withdrawal.

You can see more about these rights at:

www.dataprotection.ie

Should you require any further details regarding our treatment of personal data, please contact Edmond Hanley.

You will not normally have to pay a fee to exercise your data protection rights. Where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, taking account of whether it is repetitive, we may charge a reasonable fee based on the administrative costs involved or refuse to act on the request, as permitted by law. We will explain and justify any such decision. If we refuse to act, we will also inform you of your right to complain to the Data Protection Commission and seek a judicial remedy.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We will respond to requests to exercise your data protection rights without undue delay and within one month of receipt. Where necessary, taking account of the complexity and number of requests, we may extend this period by up to two further months. If an extension is required, we will inform you within the initial one-month period and explain the reasons for the delay.

If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Data Protection Commission (DPC), the Irish supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.dataprotection.ie). Please contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.

11. Website Cookies

Information about cookies used on our website and the choices available to visitors is set out in our separate Cookie Policy, available at https://mmcco.ie/cookie-policy/.