Mr. Tony Murphy:

Sometimes the European Parliament can disagree with the Commission and say it also has a discharge resolution when considering the reports. It can say it recommends this recommendation is implemented. There is another step. Sometimes that can even happen at the Council level. We go to working groups of the Council and it can also discuss reports. They will sometimes say something about a particular recommendation. Certain member states might be stronger on certain things than others. They might be vociferous at a working group and say they think this recommendation makes sense. To be fair, auditors are sometimes looking for nirvana. Sometimes the recommendations could be good in principle, but in the end when they do an analysis, they might say this costs too much to implement. The cost-benefit analysis is not worth it. We have to be realistic and reasonable. That is a structured and set procedure for audit recommendations. What is probably more interesting is the opinions, which the Deputy said is like bringing them together. We did one on the RRF. We have done an awful lot on recovering. We did approximately 12 reports and brought them all together in a review and we have one page where we say what we think are the risks and challenges. That will also feed into the opinions we do. The opinions go into the system and are then part of the negotiating process, which are the tripartite meetings between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council. We are not involved there. It is a contribution. We hope some of the issues we raise will be there. Probably our most effective way to be honest is via the European Parliament. We go to the rapporteurs who are responsible for the dossiers. We will tell them these are the specific issues we think are more important. We know they will not take on board everything. For instance, for us, on the new MFF what we see is that it is almost going down the road of budget support. It is giving the money centrally. There is less regional involvement. It is becoming like a transfer to the member state, and it goes into the national funds. We say there has to be proper traceability. That was one of the issues we had with the recovery and resilience fund. It is impossible to trace the money.