Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

The trend in error rates is just around a single point. It has not improved or disimproved much over several years. It is quite a bit lower than it was in the early to mid-2000s. After much effort, there was a big shift downwards. The Commission is finding it difficult to get it much lower than it is. We are trying to help by identifying the areas where we think the Commission could look. As to whether our recommendations are binding, we are just auditors. We do not make the legislative or administrative decisions. We do go back and check the following year what the Commission has done with the recommendations we made. In fairness, there is much uptake of our recommendations. I do not know, however, if it is somewhat formalistic rather than wholehearted. There is a good level of reaction and at least some action on all our recommendations.

When there is a breach of rules at the kind of level Deputy Kyne referred to, another body called OLAF, Office Européen de Lutte Antifraude, the anti-fraud body, can become involved. We refer 20-odd cases to that agency every year in cases where we think there is fraud. Other people can also make direct complaints to OLAF.

On whether the rules are too finicky and so forth, in the end those who make the rules are not even the Commission. It makes the lower level rules. Most of the rules are made between member states and in the Parliament. They arrive at the current level of complication for a reason and it is not always a purely administrative reason. There is an awful lot of political horse-trading which has to take place to get the programmes agreed. Sometimes, the high level of control is the quid pro quofor having the payments in the first place. That is something into which parliaments have more input than I have.

I note the committee is involved in COSAC, the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union. There are an increasing number of opportunities in national European law for our national parliaments to be engaged in the European policy process. There has been much debate recently in Ireland about the European Central Bank, ECB. The new arm of the ECB, the Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM, has rules about engaging with national parliaments which are more extensive than the current ECB rules.