Taxpayer bill for land eligibility justified

Children’s toys found on farms were part of the evidence on which the European Commission based their move in 2014 to fine Ireland €181 million for five years of ineligible land payment claims.

Commission officials, who carried out a series of audits in Ireland from 2009 onwards, said the toys showed that some land for which payments were claimed was garden land rather than farmland.

On three farms, inspectors from the commission found more scrub adjacent to a hedge than the Department had allowed for.