Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

It is a contradiction. An auditor comes along and finds a problem and then the natural reaction is to have additional control.

We do not typically argue for less control of spending. We suggest making this spending programme simpler so that it is harder to make a mistake. If there are 20 different potential objectives for a particular piece of spending, it is harder to say that any one of those is effective because the money is spread out. It is not focused on something in particular. A simple example, which we are going to talk about in the Committee on European Union Affairs, is reimbursement programmes where a beneficiary receives money with a bunch of conditions attached to it, spends it and then applies back for the money. Those programmes are more difficult and more complex. Therefore they have a higher rate of error than the single farm payment where there is an entitlement and the payment is based on that entitlement.

When the Commission is designing programmes, we encourage it to make them simpler so that control should be less of an issue. However, if Ireland makes mistakes and pays out money where it was not due to be paid out, the Commission will say it needs some of that back. It happened a couple of years ago. That means that the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is always anxious to have controls. It is important. However, we never say, for example on the area-based entitlement, that a country must be 100% right. If a European auditor, whether from the Commission or from the Court of Auditors, asks if a figure is right, I think the number is plus or minus 3% on the area. No one is expected to be 100% correct. However, they are expected to follow the rules that are there. We advocate not giving people an excuse for not following the rules. The rules should be made simpler in the first place. Maybe that is where the balance can be found. People need to follow the rules but the rules can be simpler. I estimate that in 50% of RDP reports, we say this could have been simpler.