Ireland pays back €5.5m to European Commission

Recovery of wrongly claimed single farm payments from farmers is set to continue, after the European Commission announced this week it has claimed back €5.5m from Ireland.

The money was overpaid to farmers here as area aid expenditure, due to weaknesses in eligible land mapping and in the registration and control of commonage land, undue tolerance in administrative cross-checks, and incorrect penalty calculation, said the Commission.

The money returns to the EU budget because of non-compliance with EU rules or inadequate control procedures on agricultural expenditure.