Mr. John McCarthy:

Chairman, I am conscious that the Deputy asked another question on where we stand in terms of EU compliance which I did not answer. Apologies for missing that.

Historically, both in terms of transposing EU legislation even before implementation, our record showed we had quite a number of infringements at one point. In 2010, we had about 32 or 33 live environmental infringements. We have put in significant levels of effort in the past number of years and are now down to single digits, either eight or nine, with a large number of cases closed.

Returning to the discussion on landfill remediation, we have committed to the European Commission to undertake a range of remediations as part of what is called "a programme of actions" to resolve one of the remaining cases.

In terms of restoring our national reputation, the approach we have taken in that case is now regarded by the Commission as best practice in terms of dealing with legacy issues. We now have the Commission referring other member states who find themselves in difficulty in dealing with instances like that to come and talk to us about what we did. It has been a long and difficult process and it has involved significant investment. From the reputational point of view, it is yielding benefits.