Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is essentially a fine. It is money committed from the EU that it does not give us, so it is basically the same as a fine. We anticipate the money coming in that is linked with schemes and the EU gives us so much and does not give us the remainder because that is the disallowance.

D3(ii) is the interest on capital borrowed for intervention. This is an Estimate but we will not spend that much, which is why the figure last year was €28,000 even though we have given a much higher figure this year. Could Mr. Caddie tell me what the figure of €28,000 we spent last year relates to?

To my knowledge, there are not any products on which intervention money is being spent because the trigger for intervention is approximately half the price currently for beef, for example. However, this may be ongoing payments from previous intervention prices for which we would have had to have paid and then recoup the money. There is interest to be paid in the meantime which is, essentially, the cost of capital. When there are early payments for single farm payments, for example, we must carry the cost of financing early payments in terms of the interest charged between when the money is drawn down from Europe and when we pay it to farmers. I presume this is a similar cost in terms of interest on capital around intervention but I can give the Deputy a note on it. That is my understanding of it.