Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

According to the figures I extracted, in 2019, we received €1.9 billion through EU programmes and paid in €2.4 billion. Even in terms of that €1.9 billion, we need to assess if we are getting bang for our buck because the decision about how that money is spent is not made here. It is made at a European level. It is still an awful lot of money. There is no other area of public expenditure that has so little scrutiny and it will become a larger and larger part of the overall budget.