Mr. Edward Fennessy:

I thank Mr. Cardiff and I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for their interest in our work. I hope we can give some explanations. I will take the questions in no particular order, other than to say I think I should give a special translation of the concept of cute hoorism to my Dutch friend next to me, but I will do that later.

A question was asked about the court's role in fraud and investigation. We do not have a specific role in fraud, although we detect suspected fraud and we hand over those cases to the body responsible, namely, the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, in the Commission. There is an old adage in auditing which holds that the auditor is a watchdog, not a bloodhound. We live by that because if one wishes to be a bloodhound, one must have police powers. We do not seek them and we do not want them.

Deputy Kyne raised the question of what member states are doing to drive down error rates. They are doing a good deal. There is a particular preoccupation with the error rates. I go to the six monthly meetings of the directors of paying agencies. At each meeting there is a preoccupation with the court's error rates and what to do about them. The Commission is taking it seriously. There are more action plans than I could count on my fingers. Everyone is making a noble effort to try to address the issues we raise.

Deputy Dooley raised a question about the concept of genuine mistakes and so on and so forth. There is the concept of deliberate error allowed into legislation. If it is clear that a given error was purely by genuine mistake, it is taken into account by the paying agencies before they make payment.

There was a question on recovery of misspent funds. We carry out regular follow-up to see what the Commission and member states do in terms of the errors we raise. I wish to put into perspective Ireland's role in the error rate, especially in agriculture, for which I have a particular responsibility. We do a sample of 180 transactions for Pillar 1 and a sample of 180 transactions for Pillar 2, rural development. Ireland features probably four to six times in these transactions. We find errors but certainly Ireland is not the most error-prone country. That said, we do not have a sample that would permit us to give an insight by member state. We would need an army of comptrollers and auditors to do that. We give a global déclaration d’assurance, DAS, and Ireland features in that in a relatively minor way. That is one reason we cannot give country-to-country comparisons; we do not have the basis for doing so. As Mr. Cardiff said, to a certain extent we give country-to-country comparisons when we examine performance audit work. We make a selection of certain member states, either because they get the majority of the funds or because we know there are difficulties in those particular member states or because there are high risks. As Mr. Cardiff also noted, sometimes we do so to identify and highlight cases of good practice.

The question of over-declarations of land was raised and Deputy Dooley asked about the overall envelope. Naturally, we are particularly aware of that and we take note of it. We believe, nevertheless, that it is important for us to point out that the envelope is perhaps sometimes distributed in an uneven way or in a way that is not necessarily respecting all the rules. That is our role.

We are aware there are big problems in many member states with the LPIS. In certain respects it is a moving target. Last year, we had considered doing a performance audit on the LPIS. However, after mature reflection we decided to defer that audit since there is a good deal of movement in the LPIS at the moment because of the new CAP regulations, the greening concept and all the rest.

We will certainly come back to that issue and are aware of the difficulties. No doubt, within the next 18 months, we will reconsider the appropriateness of conducting a performance audit in that area.

I hope I have answered the majority of the questions asked or embellished the answers given by Mr. Cardiff. If there is anything I have not touched on, I will be happy to do so.