WHEN Ireland received notification of its original £95 million beef fines - now reduced to £71 million - officials were horrified to find the Commission had levied the fines at the maximum level of 10 per cent of Community spending under the relevant headings.
Most of the original fines, at £75 million, were imposed in respect of failures in 1990 and 1991 to adequately supervise yields and quality in the beef intervention storage system.
Irish efforts to reduce them are understood to have concentrated on the £48 million fine for 1991 when new controls were said to have been in place.
The £18 million fine was imposed for breaches of Commission regulations which forbade those tendering for intervention contracts to submit more than one offer per contract.
In Ireland and five other countries there was evidence that multiple tenders had been made by the same bidders using the names of different front companies.
Department officials are said by the Commission to have colluded in the practice.
The Government contends that there is ambiguity in the legislation and that the Commission was aware of the practices and took an inconsistent approach to those involved in them.
It believes it will have a strong case when the issue goes to the European Court of Justice.
Both issues initially went to a conciliation committee which suggested a substantial reduction in the tendering fine as it said the breaches of regulations had not led to distortions in the market or losses to the Community.
The conciliation report on the storage issue was less sympathetic. Ireland, Britain, Italy and France had all been fined for serious contraventions of their obligations to safeguard Community funds in their capacity as managers of the intervention system.
Nevertheless, the committee felt that the Commission's surveys of the malpractice were not sufficiently statistically representative to justify levying the fines at the maximum level of 10 per cent. The Commission was not obliged to accept the recommendations.
