Mr. Tony Murphy:

Good training, yes. I then spent some time in the European Commission, which is our main auditee. I have been in the European Court of Auditors for about 12 years so.

The audit profession is changing due to technology, AI, etc. It is going to have a huge impact on the way we work. For instance, we have to publish everything in all the official languages, which is a huge overhead. AI will eventually have a major role there in terms of reducing translation. It is not reliable enough the moment, apparently, so we still have some work to do in that regard.

The big changes I have seen are in technology. When I started in the C and AG's office, our big technology was a green pen that no one else could use. We were the only ones allowed to use a green pen. Things have changed from those days. Computers were really only for data mining and stuff like that. It was in its very early stages. Technology will change.

We will also have to deliver more for less. It is a general trend in administrations. The big area that is under pressure in the EU budget is administration. There is very little room for manoeuvre there no matter what. It is capped and if anything, they want to reduce it. That will also have an impact.

Ireland has become a net contributor, which will create a bigger awareness of the EU and its impact. We have been banging on about this for a while. We had a very good Irish presence in the EU institutions because a lot of people joined when Ireland join the EU. Many of them are now coming to retirement age. We have not had a replenishment, let us say. It is really important to have an input in the different directorates general in the Commission. You are not there to represent Ireland per se, but you are bringing the Irish aspect to the table. These are trends we have to be careful of. We need to have a good representation there.

The EU also has to be careful. Covid was an opportunity. The EU stepped into the breach. That had to be done, but there are also areas where we have to respect national sovereignty. We joke with the Commission by saying that NextGenerationEU is very well named because the next generation is going to have to pay it all back. As stated earlier, we are at a crossroads with the EU. It has to decide what it wants to do with the money it has available. I would tell it that getting the structures organised this year would seem to be putting the cart before the horse. Surely it would be better to know how much money it has available and then the structure should fit to the money. I would have thought so.

The next MFF is going to be very difficult. We also see fragmentation in Europe in terms of some of the member states not being the most co-operative. There are many challenges ahead. Enlargement is really going to be an issue in the short term. Moldova had its elections; it wants to join as soon as possible. Montenegro has been waiting for a long time. The big one on the block is Ukraine. The money that would be involved there is phenomenal.

Member states and people have to realise that, sometimes, the expectations of the EU, with the budget it has, are a bit out of sync. You have a budget of a couple of hundred billion euro that you are trying to spread that across 27 member states and then across regions in those member states. We have our different boards here. There are three or four here now but if you go to Spain, it is really decentralised. There are huge regions there, which are all very different. You are trying to have an influence across all of this. I am not saying it is not a lot of money but, relatively speaking, sometimes I think the expectations are maybe too high. Some of it is the EU's own fault because it maybe promises too much. Sometimes it should be a little bit more cautious in what it claims. On the other hand, you have to be a bit ambitious as well. We have the problem with the climate targets, for instance, because they are not going to be met. We are now into fines territory. There should be ambitious targets but they should not be unrealistic.