Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

I will run through the questions in order. I was asked whether the schemes are overly complicated. We think they are. That is what we are saying. At other times, we point out that certain schemes are capable of being abused and therefore require extra complications here and there. As a general principle, the European Court of Auditors regularly suggests that simplification would lead to less error.

On the area of maps, our job is to indicate problems and maps are used by all the control systems, both in terms of deciding how much a person can claim but also in terms of deciding when something has been over-claimed. Of course, while it is a problem, I do not know whether we could manage without them at any level of the control system, whether it is the European Court of Auditors or the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. At least, as they improve, we will have the benefit of some additional precision, as Deputy Durkan said.

On the question of whether we are worse or better than anybody else, we have produced some national data this year to cover the 2007-13 period. We work on a sample basis and small countries get sampled less, so we do not have enough information on Ireland to come to definitive conclusions. However, while there is no evidence to say we are wonderful, nor is there anything to suggest we are a lot worse than anybody else. We are not immune from errors, at the least. As I said earlier, we reported 14 suspected cases of fraud to OLAF this year, not 100, 200 or 300. Our auditors are not arriving at the farm gate, the factory gate or the sites of European spending and saying there is a lot of clear, out-and-out fraud afoot. While some of the errors are egregious, and are out-and-out, pull-the-other-one stuff, most of the errors we find are smallish relative to the spend involved. Of course, with small things, it is always very difficult to say whether it is deliberate or not. Perhaps I have solved the urban-rural divide by saying there is a little truth in everything but that we should not exaggerate this.

On the culture in existence in agriculture, I am from Santry and I do not know. We certainly see some small number of cases in every country across Europe that suggest people are simply not attending to their obligations, but not all by any means. The auditors on the ground do come across the cases that other people were talking about, where people simply under-claim to avoid getting it wrong. Of course, we never report an under-claim.

Are over-payments recouped by the Commission? Yes, they are, and also by the member state. One of the issues is that if something is caught late - for example, if an over-claim is noticed four or five years on - is one statute-barred from chasing back? By the time it is found, investigated, reported to the Commission and brought back, it can take quite a long time. It is clear that member states in general do not recoup anything like the amount the Commission might demand from them as a recovery but they certainly do have a practice of going back and doing that.

With regard to Ukraine, Moldova and so forth, we have a division of the court that looks at external actions, and it does go into those places where European money is spent. There is an audit ongoing on Ukraine and some of my colleagues came back two weeks ago and hung up their flak jackets after a visit to Afghanistan. Where European money is spent, one might find a Court of Auditors person there, unless it is really very hot, in which case discretion might be the better part.

I was asked whether member states and the Commission take sufficient interest in our findings. We live in hope. The world is not changing as rapidly as we would have liked, so the answer may be that things could be better. However, we find that the Commission at least makes an effort to address our recommendations, and it is usually a fairly honest effort, even if it does not always go as far as we would have hoped. An auditor's job is a dream one in the sense that one can make all the recommendations one likes; one does not have to be responsible for carrying them out. It is perhaps a bit hard on the Commission sometimes because our job is to criticise, not to implement.

For example, we published a report yesterday about good practice. We went looking for good practice in countries in terms of ensuring the reasonableness of costs in rural development with a view to helping the Commission and the member states to identify what other countries do that works and to spread that message around. In a sense, we have access rights that others do not have so that was an attempt to be positive.

On the question of what issues create euroscepticism in Ireland, such as the habitats directive, the lack of accountability is one issue we are trying to address. I have relatives in the same part of the country as the Deputy's slug, or was it a snail?