Vol. 477 No. 1
7 Mr. O'Malley asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry if he will make a formal complaint to the fraud squad of the Garda Síochána regarding the Bureau Veritas certificates which purported to show the import of Irish beef into Iraq; and if not, the reason therefor. [8632/97]
The Deputy seems to be referring to the apparent addition of dates of shipment on some Bureau Veritas certificates. These dates were cross-checked and verified against certification provided directly to the Department by Irish customs officials present at the ports. Furthermore, the commercial transport documentation was examined for each shipment. None of the export details was misrepresented.
There is no evidence to suggest the beef concerned did not enter Iraq. No disallowance of refund has been imposed by the European Commission on foot of these particular certificates relating to 1988. I have no basis for a complaint to the Garda Síochána. However, if the Deputy has information which he believes is relevant to this issue, I will arrange to have it examined immediately.
I am interested to hear the Minister say there is no evidence of any incorrect statement of amounts exported. On 2 February 1993 at the beef tribunal, Monsieur C. Peron gave evidence in the course of which evidence given the previous week by Mr. McGill from the Irish customs was put to him. He agreed that a tonnage of 855 tonnes shown on a Bureau Veritas certificate as having been imported to Iraq was shown in the documentation of the Irish customs as being 604 tonnes when it was exported. An additional 251 tonnes mysteriously appeared in the meantime. The adequate payments were no doubt made on that.
In view of the Minister's extraordinary statement that he has no evidence this beef ended up anywhere other than Iraq, I refer him to the evidence of the Secretary and accounting officer of his Department who told me in the Committee of Public Accounts a fortnight ago that, among other places where the beef, purportedly exported to Iraq, ended up were Poland, Romania, Gabon, Lebanon and the Canary Islands. Is he aware that some of this beef, of which he says he has no evidence it did not arrive in Iraq, is still in the Canary Islands where police are investigating it and where some strange activities seem to have been engaged in as a result of it? Since the premise on which he bases his reply that he refuses to report this or complain to the Garda about it is patently wrong, will he reconsider and report it to the Garda?
On the issue of the beef on the Canary Islands, the export refund for that has not been finalised and is under investigation and I answer that in detail in Question No. 21 on today's Order Paper. The answer I gave was based on the assumption that the Deputy requested at the meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts to see the Bureau Veritas certificates relating to export refunds for 1988. The Bureau Veritas was responsible in this case for confirming the import of the beef to Iraq. We make advance payments from export declarations sent to us by the customs and excise staff, not from Bureau Veritas certificates. Even if the dates were wrong or altered on the Bureau Veritas certificate in this case, it would be the export declaration, not the certificate, which was the basis on which the payments were made. The answer I gave relates to the £2.29 million disallowance in 1988. That was not a total disallowance but a disallowance of 10 per cent as there was £32 million in that year.
Any evidence given at the beef tribunal has already been referred to various authorities. If the Deputy has further information unavailable to me — I do not deal with these files on a day-to-day basis — or if he has a credible third party who has such information which suggests that this beef might not have gone to Iraq or that there might be questions relating to the volume of consignments, I am only too anxious to ensure the truth is revealed and that any information he has is be assessed by the proper authorities.
I am only too anxious also but I am sure I have no information which is not already available to senior officials in the Minister's Department. I cannot accept his efforts to distance himself from those officials and say he knows nothing about it because the information is available in the Department.
My question is not confined to 1988 or 1989 but relates to all Bureau Veritas certificates. As a further example of how these Bureau Veritas certificates were altered, defaced or had information superimposed on them, to use his Department's phrase, I refer him to certificate No. 1093 where it is certified by the Irish Ambassador in Baghdad as having been signed by T. Gurney when that person did not sign it and where the covering letter says that the particular stamp is attached to it when it is not. Can he explain why certificate No. 1093 is dated as 31 October 1988 and the certificate beside it for the same sailing, No. 1092, is dated 31 August? Is he aware the accounting officer of his Department told me the Department could easily have changed the dates if they had to make them correspond with those on shipping documents?
The matter was raised by Deputy O'Malley in relation to one certificate, No. 1093, the signature to which had been authenticated by the Irish Ambassador to Iraq. It was not signed by T. Gurney but by C. Peron on behalf of T. Gurney. I advise the House that this certificate was one out of 20 presented at the same time to the Ambassador. All the others contained T. Gurney's signature. Mr. C. Peron is a senior Bureau Veritas employee in Paris known to this Department. We are satisfied the certificate in question is genuine.
The question of the advance payment is not triggered by the date on the Bureau Veritas certificate but by the date of the export declaration sent to us by the customs and excise staff. I am advised that if someone were perpetrating a fraud, customs and excise officials would also have to produce fraudulent material.
Will the Minister explain why people went to so much trouble to change the Bureau Veritas certificates if there was no money to be made out of them? Why does he still insist on his assertion that he has no evidence that none of this beef went anywhere other than Iraq when I referred to five countries to which it went? How does he reconcile his statement about the authenticity of the certificates signed by Mr. Peron, and allegedly witnessed by the Irish Ambassador in Baghdad, when Mr. Peron gave evidence again on 2 February 1993 under oath to the tribunal and said that the stamp of the Irish embassy in Baghdad, which was on the documents he was shown, was the first time he had seen it and it was obviously put on afterwards?
Some of these questions which I am not trying to evade enter into a realm of detail. If the Deputy is alleging this beef, based on the Bureau Veritas certificates, did not end up in Iraq, I am extremely interested in pursuing that. Any evidence he can procure to that effect will be investigated by me. I spoke to the principal officer and the assistant principal officer in that division today to obtain as much information as possible for the Deputy. Those officers assure me they can give detailed answers. I do not want to go into the details of the files, but they said forfeitures occurred where they believed there was any impropriety. They closed the files with UCLAF and others on these issues and as this is EU money the public administration of this matter has been dealt with. If new information comes to light from a credible witness, we will be very interested in pursuing it. We will take each issue, file and certificate and analyse it fairly. The records of my Department can be made available to the Deputy for further inspection, if that would be of assistance in this regard.
That would be of great assistance.
I have allowed a good deal of latitude on this question. I will hear a brief and final question from Deputy O'Malley.
I accept that and I am grateful to the Chair. I put it to the Minister that he was incorrect in saying the files are all closed on this matter. UCLAF is investigating matters of which it was not previously aware. Under regulation 3665/87 the Minister has an obligation to recover all sums unduly paid and, to use the phrase of that regulation, there are sums unduly paid. The Minister has an obligation to recover them, but he has made no attempt to do so. He was also wrong in saying all the files are closed because the Government withheld its consent to the release of £7 million in securities and that sum is still the subject of investigation from a fraud point of view by various authorities here and in Brussels.
As regards the files that are closed and those that are open, it is the case that as Minister I authorised the release and the largest forfeiture ever in relation to many of these papers. There was a residual file of about £6 million which is still under investigation and, pending that consideration, those guarantees have not been released. Regarding the points raised at the meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, they related to export refunds in 1988 and 1989. I am informed by my officials that UCLAF completed its investigation of those files and it is in that regard I referred to them as being closed.
