THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION is to ask Ireland to repay €625,000 in agricultural funding because it was not spent correctly, or because there was insufficient scrutiny of how the money was being spent.

The funds include €397,000 in rural development funds because of weaknesses in the Early Retirement and Young Farmers schemes.

The refunds also include €198,000 in funding from 2010 which was discovered to have fallen foul of the spending requirements during audits of that spending.

They also include €30,000 which Ireland will repay for not reporting interest it would incur on other debts.

An additional €13,000, which did not meet the CAP criteria because payments were made late, has already been returned.

Ireland’s returns are among the smallest in the total package of returns being sought by the European Commission from the EU’s member states. A total of €414 million is being sought for return.

Among that is €17.7 million being sought from the UK, over breaches of the Commission’s rules for land parcel identification problems in Northern Ireland.

The England region faces the largest fine, with €111.7 million being sought for similar land identification problems.