Mr. Tony Murphy:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. It is a pleasure finally to be here in person. I thank the Chairman for his best wishes and congratulations. It is an honour for me to be here as President of the European Court of Auditors. It is an honour as an auditor and an Irishman to be president of one of the seven EU institutions. It is great news for us all and shows how our education system and other things are appreciated on the broader EU spectrum. The purpose of our appearance is to give an overview of the work on our 2021 annual report and to give a flavour of some of the special reports that we produced during 2022 and that we will produce in the coming months, into 2023. I will give a quick overview of the key figures for the EU, I will concentrate on our annual report, I will flag some special reports which might be of interest and then I will speak about additional EU funding sources because, as we know, numerous sources are popping up all of the time that provide new challenges to us as auditors.

The revenue for the EU budget was almost €240 billion, of which Ireland contributed €3 billion. The biggest percentage of this €3 billion is in relation to the GNI contribution of about €1.9 billion. Expenditure totalled €181.5 billion. To put it into context, that is basically 1.3% of EU GNI or €400 for each EU citizen. On the expenditure included in this total, Ireland’s total contribution is around €2.7 billion. As we have pointed out before, we have been a net contributor in recent years. On the absorption of funds, some member states are having problems absorbing the funds that are available and we are talking about the European structural and investment funds, ESIF, in particular. These include the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, the European Social Fund, ESF, and the European agricultural guarantee fund, EAGF. As members can see, Ireland is top of the class and we have 81% absorption at the end of 2021, which is far above the average of 67%.