EU:A report by the European Parliament's internal auditor is causing a ruckus among MEPs after it found problems with the way deputies use their staff allowance.
The secret report examines a sample group of 167 payments - there are 785 deputies in the EU assembly - in respect of staff allowances that can run to €17,000 a month.
British Liberal MEP Chris Davies, who has seen the document, said his first reaction was "a degree of hysteria given the scale of the abuse that is taking place and given the fact that it has been kept secret". The report is only available to members of the parliament's budgetary control committee on the basis that they agree to treat it confidentially.
The document does not mention names but "highlights malpractice". This includes deputies paying the whole of the staff allowance to one person or receiving the money although they do not have staff. The total is said to involve more than €1.3 million for the audited period between late 2004 and early 2006.
The report is now to be taken up by the EU's anti-fraud office which will investigate the matter. Mr Davies, who alerted the fraud office, said he would not be against the investigation "ultimately leading to MEPs' imprisonment" if that was a "necessary requirement" for reform.
The monthly staff allowance is used to hire assistants for MEPs. It is not against the rules to hire a relative to work in the office or the constituency.
Avril Doyle, a Fine Gael MEP who employs five full-time and one part-time assistant with her allowance, said: "In any 700 or 800 cohort of people, there is bound to be a few black sheep," but added, "I think it is very little myself." She stressed that herself and fellow Irish MEPs use a "service provider", normally an accountant, to administer the fees. This person "draws down the entire monthly allowance, banks it in a bank account for which we as MEPs have no drawing rights. He pays the PRSI and PAYE and everything needed in the Irish system".
A parliament spokesman stressed that the report "has not revealed any individual cases of fraud". Nevertheless, it has been decided to keep it confidential with some suggesting this was because it could affect turnout in the European election next year, which has suffered from voter apathy in the past.
Harald Romer, the assembly's secretary general, is now expected to suggest a single system for the recruitment of MEPs' staff. Currently, the system is a mass of confusion with three ways to recruit staff and 27 national tax, social security and administrative systems.