Vol. 471 No. 7
110 Mr. Davern asked the Minister for Finance the reason, according to the report of the Court of Auditors, 10 per cent set aside was not spent in detecting fraud of £3 billion; and if he intends to ensure more efficient spending to prevent fraud during Ireland's Presidency of the EU. [22128/96]
The figure of £3 billion (4 billion ecu is the figure given in the Court of Auditors Statement of Assurance) has been obtained by extrapolating the results of a sample of 683 payment transactions and related to payments involving an error of one kind or another. It would be wrong to assume that all of these errors in payments involve fraud: some may refer to irregularities. An error rate of 5.9 per cent was detected. Applying this rate to the entire budget gives the figure of 4 billion ecu. This figure can only be taken as an indication of the possible level of payment error. Nevertheless, the Government, in common with other member states, is concerned about the existence of fraud or irregularity in EU funding. Indeed, article 209a of the Treaty on European Union obliges member states to take the same measures to counter fraud affecting the financial interests of the Community as they take to protect their own financial interests.
Let me assure the Deputy that this Government is fully committed to combating the misuse of Community resources. Last week ECOFIN adopted a regulation dealing with on-the-spot inspections. The Commission report on sound financial management (SEM 2000) is currently before the ECOFIN council. This report contains wide-ranging proposals for the improvement of the financial management of EU resources by member states in partnership with the Commission and it will be considered at the next meeting of the ECOFIN council in December.
