Mr. Dara Lynott:

I will deal with some of the European Commission matters that Deputy Ó Broin brought together. The relationship around infringements is directly with the member state and the Department deals directly with those. This is carried out through correspondence, package meetings and so forth. The EPA then comes in to support with the evidence and its regulatory role on it. It has to be said that the 2007 legislation that was brought in to license all these wastewater treatment plants was itself also a result of an infringement. At that point the negotiations included a period of time by which all the wastewater treatment plants would be licensed. That was completed in late 2016. From that were set out the timeframes within which the upgrades had to happen and what we are hearing about today are the delays in meeting those timeframes.

Like in every court case, it obviously has to come to court, it has to be argued, it has to be decided on and then, depending on guilt or innocence, fines have to be dealt with. Senator Grace O'Sullivan asked a question about fines and timeframes. We do not know but obviously we will put forward all the evidence we have collected through our annual reports as part of any submission that goes through to the member state. Regarding our experience of fines, I was involved with the septic tank regulation and that resulted in fines of about €15,000 a day. These continued until the Commission was satisfied that the appropriate legislation had been put in place and that it included national inspection plans. To reiterate what other speakers have said, there is a need to get proof that there are valid and sustainable plans of action in place. I imagine the same process will be gone through here.