Ms Maria Graham:

I have no wish to mislead the committee. I am simply outlining my practical experience in dealing with an infringement case. When a case is taken against Ireland, we have to demonstrate compliance with a directive. I accept that in a legal sense when we go to court, we are defending the case. While that is the position, in practical terms - this is borne out by our experience, in the case of septic tanks, of having fines applied under the urban wastewater directive when we defended a case involving infringements of the directive in respect of drinking water, the State spends a great deal of time in presenting lots of data to the European Commission to demonstrate how we are in compliance.