Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

Yes we could have done so regarding the €20 million. This is where I hide behind the policy decision read out earlier. I will go through the debt, which may be helpful. The debt for the years 2013 and 2014 was very low. There was only €3.6 million of a disallowance for those years. The reason it was so low is because, effectively, the Commission was happy with the systems we had in place by 2013, for example, the orthophotography and so on.

On the other debt, which is the €64 million for 2008 to 2012, of that €950,000 had already been paid to the Commission and so that amount fell away from the subsequent amount. There were then a number of what are called "specified risks". These amounted to €21 million and were determined by the Commission. This related to the kind of issue mentioned by the Deputy. It may seem extraordinary but what weighed very heavily on the Commission was that in three individual cases more scrub was found adjacent to a hedge than we had allowed for. Another issue rose in respect of an incorrect percentage reduction for scrub. For example, there could be a field which has grass and animals but some of it is scrub. The question that arises is whether to apply a percentage reduction of 20%, 40% or 50% to that field. Another case involved a garden that was included in parcel. I am told that the crucial issue was that there were some children's toys on the land and that resulted in it being identified as a garden. Those specified risks which the Commission determined and then extrapolated across the country amounted to €21 million. It would have been difficult to pin those on individual farmers.

We collected another €3 million from farmers in December 2014. We did not send on that money to the Commission and so it does not appear in the figures we have given. It will appear in the 2016 Vote because it brought to account in 2016.

One could include that as something also farmers have carried.

We then had another €19.8 million, which was for 2008 and 2009. There is a provision in EU legislation which provides that debts must be collected within four years from the date of the debt accruing and this was outside that period. Although maybe, theoretically, one could have identified this at farm level, by the time this was all resolved it had gone beyond that time limit.

One then had a remainder of €16.4 million, after the deduction of all of those figures. No, I apologise, I forgot about another €3 million, which is the carryover on commonages. Commonages have been a regular feature of difficulty in EU audits. Anybody who is familiar with commonage land will be aware it tends to be very high up in hills. It is almost always marginal. It has all the issues that I have just identified but it has the additional complication of multiple owners. Commonage also came into it for €3 million. The final figure was €16.4 million, which could have been then pinned on farmers. What could have been pinned on farmers was the €16.4 million, the €1 million that we did and which was sent to the Commission, and the €3 million which we did and which will be brought to account in 2016.

The one other thing I would say about the cost of this to farmers is what does not appear in those figures is that farmer payments in 2013, after all this was done, were €12.5 million less than they would have been. Of course, that is a permanent loss because that goes on. As a result of the new determination of what land was eligible, farmers got €12.5 million less than they would have got in 2013.