Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Cardiff and the officials. Apologies I am late, I was at another committee meeting and missed the witnesses' presentation. I head the end of the interaction between the two colleagues concerning the agricultural side of things and I know the Department of Agriculture has received notice of a fine of €180 million which they actively challenging. They are confident they will be able to get that reduced.

As Deputy Durkan has explained, there have been huge inroads made on satellite inspections. Because of the increasing use of technology over the last years, retrospective penalties have been applied to farmers. One might say this is somewhat unfair, but the EU has stated that this money has gone out and must be recouped. The increased and better use of technology has enabled these penalties to be applied. A lot of this comes across my desk as a rural Deputy and often it is a case of farmers applying for the same thing every year and not changing it rather than intending to apply for things erroneously. They have declared the same areas of land every year without updating them, rather than going out of their way to do something incorrectly. In the future, I imagine, the impact on agricultural payments will be reduced as the technology improves because there will be certainty about what farmers can apply for.

Regarding the rural development side of things, I imagine the leader programme is a big part of that. Is there any scrutiny of it or of its comparable programmes across the EU? I know in some cases there are groups applying for monies. I would imagine there have been very few problems but I have come across some issues. For example, a group has maybe been approved for funding by the Department, and has not done anything wrong, but subsequently through audits and investigations the Department decides they should not have been approved under the rules. The leader company, for example, may have sanctioned funding and misinterpreted the rules in concluding that it fell under a category which was eligible for funding. Is that something the witnesses have come across?