The vast majority of Bureau Veritas certificates submitted to my Department in support of export refund claims covered beef exported to Iraq in the period August 1988 to December 1989. These certificates have not been demonstrated to be unreliable — the £2.29 million allowance which has been imposed on Ireland by the EU Commission represented a percentage of the refund paid on export transactions covered by four certificates. The reason for the disallowance was that detailed back-up documentation was not available as it had been destroyed in Baghdad during the Gulf War.
In the case of other certificates, I believe the Deputy is referring to the apparent addition of dates of shipment on some 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. No disallowance of refund has been imposed by the Commission on foot of these certificates.
With regard to a review of more recent years the Deputy may be interested to learn the results of an intensive systems audit carried out by the Commission into beef export refund prefinancing expenditure in six member states. In Ireland the total expenditure audited amounted to £361 million in 1993 and 1994. The results have just been received — major disallowances of the order of 5-10 per cent of total expenditure have been imposed on the other five member states concerned, with no disallowances for Ireland.
