Mr. John Finnegan:

I am reluctant to characterise any member state's environmental regime as being substandard. The Commission carefully, in its extensive review, did not criticise any member state's system. The point it made, and it is the basis for all of this, is that they differ. We are in a situation where if the system differs in its definition of crimes or even in its sanctions, it is operationally very difficult for people to co-operate. One can imagine the sort of co-operation involved. The Senator raised a very good local example of it. The Commission is aiming to create that standardisation whereby, operationally, everybody is aiming for the same thing and that the legal mechanisms that already exist for arrest warrants and searches and so on can be triggered.

It is also worth saying that although the Commission does not criticise any individual member state, it has said that harmonisation does not just allow co-operation. It said that where there are differences in levels of criminal enforcement and definitions of crime, there is a danger of creating safe havens. It does not name names. This is theoretical. There is, at least in theory, a danger of areas of lesser enforcement, thereby creating safe havens, unfair competition, distorting trade, and penalising the good actors who, in good faith, try to follow these regulations and rules.

On the co-operation issue, our understanding of this proposal at this stage is that it is the type of measure that is intended to deal with that. Washing diesel and dumping the residue breaches any number of existing rules and there are a similar number of civil penalties. People can be forced to stop doing that and clean it up. This would go further in providing that, in certain circumstances, that becomes a crime. What we need to do in the scrutiny of this proposal is to set out what happens in our jurisdiction and produce a workable set of definitions and language for this directive that criminalises that practice.

To respond to the remarks on cross-sectoral enforcement, many Departments and agencies specialise in this issue. The Health and Safety Authority is involved, as is the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Irish Coast Guard and agencies involving ships. It will be a case of giving additional powers to existing agencies which are the experts in these areas. One of the issues will obviously be that if they are enforcing criminal law, co-operation may be required from other agencies. I cannot speak to that because we are at an early stage. I have to repeat that a bit. Those are the sort of complex issues which have to be considered. I can tell the committee that the 2008 directive was very complex to transpose for exactly that reason because it involved changing the legislation governing many existing Departments and agencies.