Ms Emily O'Reilly:

I thank the Deputy for that question. If I come across something that seems a little on the criminal end of things, I can certainly refer it to OLAF, which is the European anti-fraud agency, and of course we now have the European Public Prosecutor's Office, EPPO. They deal with those sorts of issues.

As for the funding, it is a huge amount of money that is there and of which we are all beneficiaries. One of the key ways of ensuring that that money is spent well is that people like the committee members and ordinary citizens can keep an eye on it. Therefore, people need to know how much is coming in, where it is going, who is getting it and what is happening with it. This is part of the plan. It seems to me entirely reasonable that people should be able to do that because, ultimately, it is their money and is being spent in their interests. We got quite a lot of complaints, as I said, first of all from people who were trying to find the details of national plans for particular countries, which were not being produced. Then we have asked the Commission to let us know how it intends to make this information public in such a way that people can easily access it and keep an eye on things. With a lot of money swirling around, there is potential for it to be spent inappropriately and not in accordance with the plan. Also, people need to see that it is being spent fairly. Recently, the Parliament passed a resolution on making sure that the names of the people who receive the most significant amounts of money are made public.

There are all sorts of data protection issues involved in this as well. The basic principle is that people would know where the money is, be able to follow it, know who is getting it and if it is being spent properly because this is vital to us all. It is vital in countries, including our own, which struggles in certain areas such as health. We have a lot of environmental problems which we need to deal with as well. Given the focus these funding streams have on the environment and spending the money on environmental projects, it is important that everybody is enabled to keep an eye on it. It is not to be done in a sort of judgmental or nosy parker way. In a way, it helps the EU administration and the Commission if they know there are other eyes on it and that the money that has been put together very rapidly is being spent well. It is a work in progress. I think the money is starting to be spent now, so it is important that everybody sees how that is going.