Mr. Tony Murphy:

It was a political decision that the EU would borrow. The borrowings are guaranteed by the member states. That is the fact of the matter. It will be much more than 175%. When the NGEU loans are fully drawn down, they will be a multiple of the budget. There is increasing debt without an identified source of repayment. That is the risk we have been raising.

We discussed the BAR last year. We have said all along that there is a risk. When we were asked for our opinion on the BAR, we said that there was a risk that, due to the projects being submitted all in one block, there could be an instance where the expenditure was not accepted by the Commission and the money would be lost. We held meetings yesterday with some of the authorities involved in managing these processes and they said that there were issues in ensuring that they identified the right projects and could demonstrate that they were eligible in terms of counteracting the negative impact of Brexit. There has to be a correlation between a project and the negative impact. Regarding Rosslare specifically, the authorities mentioned that, due to the time constraints, they may not be able to have the whole project submitted but will probably have some part of it submitted. If so, they will need to find other projects to make up the balance. There is no ticktacking with the auditors or with the Commission especially. When we raised this issue with the Commission, it told us that it would ensure to liaise on a regular basis with the member states. Seemingly, however, the authorities send the Commission details and it just replies, “Noted”. I believe it is overburdened by, for example, the RRF. There is too much happening at the same time and it cannot give this the time it originally thought it could.

Where migration is concerned, we have done a number of reports. Frontex is an agency, so we audit it as a separate entity every year, but we have also audited the reintegration or return of refugees and migrant centres, particularly in Italy and Greece. We have undertaken four or five special reports on various aspects of migration and how it is being managed within the EU. We link it to the money. We follow the money and can examine various schemes that are introduced in respect of migration and the migration deal, as it were.

Members touched on the issue of lobbying lawmakers. We had planned the audit before the unfortunate circumstances of Qatargate. It was on our list. There is a register, but we are unsure as to how effective it is. We actually delayed the audit because the European Parliament was introducing a new register. We would have had this finished before Qatargate, but the European Parliament said there was no point in auditing the register because it was being revamped and it would make more sense to audit it after the update. There is, at least in theory, a register similar to the one that the Deputy mentioned. We will see-----