17 Dec 2013, 17:02
The institution tasked with appraising the European Union’s financial management have highlighted an increasing error rate in how EU funding is spent, at a meeting with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Union Affairs this afternoon.
17 December 2013
Kevin Cardiff, the Irish Member of European Court of Auditors, was presenting the Court’s Annual Reports for 2012 to the Committee.
Chairman of the Committee Dominic Hannigan TD said: “The Committee thanks Kevin Cardiff and his colleagues for a detailed presentation on the Court of Auditors’ annual reports for 2012. We were told of a worrying trend in recent years of an increasing error rate in EU spending to stand at 4.8 percent for 2012. While it is important to note that this does not imply an increase in waste or fraud, that almost five percent of spending should not have been paid out from the EU budget in 2012 is significant.
“A number of Members raised specific concerns around the clawback of Common Agricultural Policy funding from farmers who may have inadvertently overdeclared land. More advanced satellite technology has uncovered anomalies in a number of Member States. With the new provisions under CAP reform bedding down, the Committee was told that the Court would probably examine some of difficulties associated with the so-called Land Parcel Identification System in the next 18 months. The Committee takes on board Mr Cardiff’s point that more complex funding criteria are more error prone and that Court generally recommended simplified and robust funding programmes to policymakers.
“In straitened financial times for the Union when value for money is of critical importance, it is timely that the Committee look at the institution tasked with appraising EU financial management. The Committee was told that there was no discernible trend between old and new Member States of the European Union in how effectively and efficiently the funding was dispensed.\"
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Committee Membership
Deputies: Eric Byrne, Seán Crowe, Timmy Dooley, Bernard J. Durkan, John Halligan, Dominic Hannigan (Chair), Seán Kyne, Dara Murphy (Vice-Chair) and Joe O’Reilly
Senators: Colm Burke, John Kelly, Terry Leyden, Catherine Noone and Kathryn Reilly