Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

About €12.8 million. The rest of it is from dormant accounts. I heard that an organisation like the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, was suggesting that we would up our EU contribution. I was a little bit surprised to hear that because we pay more in than we get out and we get a lot of rules back with it as well. I do not understand the point in me giving somebody money and getting 80% of my money back to spend and then they can determine the rules with it. I would be better keeping the 100% and spending it myself. I did not understand the logic that we would up our contribution voluntarily to the EU and try to get other countries to do the same when we are net contributors. Therefore, for every euro we put in I do not know if we get 80 cents back. It is something like that. The Minister is saying the CAP is great but we put in much more to pay for the CAP than the CAP pays us back. It has been that way for the last five years. It is not the free money that the public seem to think it is. We are paying dearly for that money and we are losing a hell of a lot in the transmission of the money to Brussels and back; we are also getting an awful clatter of crazy rules back with the money. That is the way it works when the figures are really looked at.