Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

The Comptroller and Auditor General has set out some of the history of the disallowance. It started with a threat of flat rate disallowances which if they had come to fruition in that form, and the Commission was very attached to that approach, would have been a flat rate cut across our payments. It would be difficult to attribute that to farmers except as a flat rate cut across everybody's payment. By implication the problems the Commission says it found would not have been present on every farm so it would have been quite difficult in Irish law to sustain the idea that a flat rate cut be made across all farmer payments. As the history of the disallowance went on, Ireland's basic point of contention with the Commission was not that there was no fault. We did not try to maintain that position but we did say the fault was such that it could be quantified and did not merit a flat rate correction. In the Comptroller and Auditor General's report there is a figure which shows the evolution of the negotiation.