Mr. Tony Murphy:

It is important to highlight that we find that, generally, towards the end of the programming period, the error rate tends to go up. Reference was made to absorption. There is more pressure to absorb the money towards the end, and that can lead to more mistakes, let us say. That is one element.

Deputy Richmond is right. We would advocate simplification where it is possible. What we find, although not necessarily in Ireland, is that in some member states the problem emanates more from the national member state. They gold-plate the rules and even go over and beyond what is required under the EU eligibility requirements. Once those rules are there, we have to take them into account, and sometimes they are much more demanding than the actual EU eligibility rules themselves.

We mentioned earlier the simplified cost options or lump sum payments, and we have been promoting them. As I said, the main source of errors is basically cost reimbursement. For example, we do not find very many errors with Erasmus grants because that is entitlement-based and is an amount calculated based on where a person is or how long they are going to be there. It is quite mathematical, like the direct payments under agriculture, which are entitlement-based.

This is where it becomes a little difficult. We do not want the Commission to go too far in terms of saying we do not want any eligibility requirements and we want them to basically be more performance-based. That is what they are trying to introduce with regard to CAP from 2023 so some parts of it are more performance-based, and it is basically the targets rather than the expenditure that is being checked, and if a country reaches a particular target, it gets the money. That is a bit of an issue we have with the recovery and resilience fund, RRF, at the moment.