I thank you for permitting me to raise again the issue of the £70 million EU fine on the Irish Government for irregularities and fraud in the beef industry. It gives me an opportunity to reply to the campaign of obfuscation which the Taoiseach and the Government have been orchestrating with some success since I first raised the matter yesterday.
I will state in simple terms what the issue is about. First, over a three year period from 1990 to 1992 sections of the beef industry, in particular the Goodman group, swindled huge sums of EU beef intervention moneys and abused the tendering process. In a letter to the chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy O'Malley estimated the extent of the scam was about £250 million. The European Commission became aware of the fraud and held the Irish Government and the Department of Agriculture and Food responsible, because they had been negligent in their control of the system. The Irish authorities were formally notified of this at meetings on 7 May 1993 and 27 July 1994, both of which dates were before the beef tribunal produced its report. The Commission imposed a fine on the Irish Government in the form of disallowances totalling almost £70 million. This was appealed by the Government and the final decision by the European Court of Justice was given last Thursday, confirming that the fine was to stand.
The question which now arises relates not to the fine itself, which has been confirmed by the European Court, but to the moneys which were swindled in the first place, the major beneficiary of which is known, namely, the Goodman group. Article 8 of EU Regulation 729/70 makes clear that member states are required by European law to seek recovery of sums lost as a result of irregularities or negligence. Our questions to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Keeffe, yesterday were specifically about the recovery of moneys lost due to irregularities or negligence in 1990 and 1991. The Minister replied that there was no recourse and no route to recovery; in other words, although the beneficiaries of the swindle are known, the State will not look for the money back, as it would do in the case of someone who defrauded social welfare or a small business which was late paying tax. The advice to this Government and to the previous Government was that recovery could not and should not be pursued until the appeal process was completed, and the legal advice was that it could not be done by way of a levy on the industry. My point, and that of my colleague, Deputy Rabbitte, has always been that recovery can and should be pursued through the Irish courts in accordance with Article 8 of EU Regulation 729/70.
This morning, the Taoiseach accused Deputy Rabbitte and me of seeking to confuse matters in the House yesterday, but it is he who has been most successful in generating a fog of detail which appears to have had the desired effect in some quarters. First, he arranged for the briefing and debriefing of the press corps yesterday evening, which left most people in the House unclear whether the Government was going to seek recovery of the money. Second, he announced that summonses were served on AIBP in Ardee yesterday for matters arising from the beef tribunal, thus giving the impression that the Government was pursuing something. He did not tell us that these summonses were authorised on 12 October 1997, nor why it has taken 12 months and questions on the Dáil Order Paper to activate them.
