CPDStore Ireland

9:00 - 10:40

The Benefits and Dangers of AI in the Tax and Legal Professions

Speaker: Conor Kennedy - EY Law Ireland

Artificial intelligence can produce polished work quickly, but fluent drafting is not necessarily accurate, balanced or reliable. This practical session demonstrates how accountants and tax advisers can use AI within a controlled professional workflow, while retaining responsibility for the facts, technical analysis and final judgment.

Using a fictional worker-classification dispute, the session follows one file from the initial factual review through competing arguments, a reasoned determination and an assessment of whether the decision should be challenged. Delegates will see how structured prompts, source controls, traceability and critical follow-up questions can improve the quality of AI-assisted work. The methods demonstrated can also be applied to tax opinions, investigation reports, regulatory responses, disputes and other evidence-based advisory work.

Conor Kennedy will cover the following topics during this webinar:

• Building a reliable factual record
How to create a balanced, numbered factual matrix that separates established facts from assumptions, interpretations and gaps in the evidence.

• Producing structured technical analysis
How to instruct AI to apply a legal or technical framework in the correct sequence, trace factual findings to the underlying record and reserve its conclusion until the analysis is complete.

• Preparing credible evidence and professional documents
How to generate witness statements and other work products in an appropriate voice, without importing legal conclusions, overstating the evidence or avoiding inconvenient facts.

• Testing both sides of a disputed issue
How to produce the strongest good-faith argument for each side, distinguish legitimate reframing from distortion and critically review authority, evidence, logic and consistency.

• Reaching and challenging a reasoned conclusion
How to reset the AI’s role from advocate to decision-maker, identify the facts that genuinely determine the outcome and distinguish a possible technical error from simple disagreement with the result.

By attending this session, delegates will learn how to:

• structure an AI-assisted workflow around a controlled and reliable source record;
• distinguish facts from assumptions, characterisations and unsupported inferences;
• design prompts that define the AI’s role, permitted sources and required method;
• require traceability between the source material, factual conclusions and technical analysis;
• use targeted follow-up questions to identify weaknesses, missing evidence and overstatement;
• obtain genuinely competing arguments rather than superficial counterarguments;
• assess AI-generated work critically before relying on it or passing it to a client or decision-maker; and
• identify a small, practical and appropriately controlled use case within their own practice.

The overall objective is to help delegates use AI more effectively while keeping professional judgment, confidentiality, technical verification and responsibility firmly with the practitioner.

The session will be of particular interest to:
• accountants and tax advisers;
• professionals involved in employment-status and worker-classification matters;
• practitioners preparing tax opinions, submissions or regulatory responses;
• forensic accountants and professionals conducting investigations;
• advisers involved in disputes, appeals or evidence-based decision-making;
• partners, directors and managers responsible for reviewing AI-assisted work; and
• professionals considering how AI can be introduced safely and effectively into their practice.
• No specialist knowledge of AI technology or prompt engineering is required.

Course Level: Intermediate

The session is practical and accessible, but it goes beyond a foundation-level introduction to AI. It assumes that delegates understand ordinary professional analysis and document preparation, and it focuses on applying structured controls to improve the reliability of AI-assisted work.

The session does not require previous technical knowledge of AI systems.

11:00 - 12:40

Tax Reliefs for the Corporate Office 2026

Speaker: Paul Murphy - Martin J. Kelly & Co

This session is designed to equip the attendee with an overview of the main reliefs available in the corporate environment for the industry accountant.

Paul Murphy will cover the following topics during this webinar:

• Corporation tax reliefs – including R&D & start-up
• Group relief overview
• Employment terminations
• Pension funding
• Shareholder exits

By attending this session you will be familiar with the current reliefs available for companies in a variety of situations including restructurings, terminations and groups.

This session will be of particular interest to Accountants in industry who would like to have a general knowledge of the main reliefs available to companies.

Course Level: Intermediate

13:40 - 15:20

Corporate Group Structures & Transactions - Key Tax Considerations - November 2026

Speaker: Niall Hanton - OmniPro Tax & Legal

Course details will be available closer to the event.

15:40 - 17:20

Buy, Build, Sell, Fund: The Corporate Finance Playbook for Finance Leaders

Speaker: Tom Murray - Friel Stafford

Industry accountants are now expected to do far more than report results. When a business plans an acquisition, raises funding, brings in investors or prepares for sale, the finance leader is at the centre of the deal, and the quality of their preparation can swing value significantly. A wave of owner succession, an active SME M&A market and shifting financing conditions mean these decisions are arriving sooner for more businesses. This session sets out what buyers, lenders and investors look for, and how to put your business and your numbers in the best possible position, drawing on 35 years of corporate finance experience across valuations, MBOs, disposals and refinancings. You will leave with a practical framework you can apply to your own business straight away.

Tom Murray will cover the following topics during this webinar:

• Valuation: how businesses are valued, the methods and multiples used, and what really moves the number
• Preparation: building a sale-ready business, clean financials and the due diligence buyers will run
• Buying well: acquisition strategy, structuring, and the red flags that cost money after completion
• Funding growth: bank debt, equity, mezzanine and shareholder funding, and what lenders test, including cash flow cover
• Exits and succession: sale, MBO/MBI and family succession, with the tax touchpoints that matter

By attending this session you will understand:

• How buyers, investors and lenders assess value and risk
• How to prepare your business and its financial information for a transaction
• The key stages, documents and pitfalls of buying or selling a business
• The funding options available and how to present a case to a lender
• Your role as finance lead in a corporate finance process

This session will be of particular interest to financial controllers, finance directors, CFOs, finance managers and senior accountants in industry, as well as business owners and management teams contemplating a transaction.

Course Level: Intermediate