An Irish farmer was recently caught by the European Court Auditors trying to get more money from Brussels by over declaring their land parcel.

The auditors became aware of the incident during a review of 251 farmer Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments in 2019 across the EU.

Some nine of those cases that were checked were made to Irish farmers, with one farmer found to be over declaring their land parcel.

The majority of checks on farmer payments take place through the use of satellite technology across Europe, and Tony Murphy, the Irish member of the European Court of Auditors, told the Irish Farmers Journal that he expects an increase in the use of this technology in the future.

Almost €59.4bn paid through CAP was reviewed by the auditors as part of their annual report for 2019 and a low margin of error was of just 1.9% was found.

Murphy said this was due in part to the exact nature of satellite inspections leaving little margin for error in the first place.