Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

I thank the Minister for his reply and congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, on his appointment. The questions I put to the Minister relate to the need to transpose the environmental liability directive into Irish law. I have asked about this previously, most recently in December. At that stage, the Minister said he was preparing the screening referred to, that it was on his website, he was awaiting replies and preparatory work was already being done on the draft legislation. He has said more or less the same in his reply today, but has added that he has received 29 responses, will have further consultation and will then publish draft legislation as soon as possible.

We had three years from 2004 to transpose this legislation. The deadline for transposition was April 2007. A year ago we received a formal notice or first warning from the European Commission for not having met the deadline and transposed the law. The Minister responded to that notice on 26 July and this year received a reasoned opinion from the Commission, basically a preliminary to the Commission referring us to the European Court of Justice for our failure to transpose the legislation.

It is now almost four years since the directive was put in place. We missed the three-year deadline and now another year has passed. The Minister has been a year in the job and no progress has been made. If he was not in Government, this is the sort of delay the Minister would have said was a black mark against Ireland. The issue should be treated as urgent.

Why do we need this directive implemented? For example, if we had an oil spill off the coast — we have 1,600 km of coastline — like the one that occurred off the coast of France in 1999 when the ship Erica sank resulting in catastrophic damage to 400 km of the French coast and causing the death of tens of thousands of birds, we would have nothing in law to ensure the protection of our environment or to ensure that those responsible would be held legally and financially accountable. We need the directive implemented in order to deter operators of ships, incinerators and other facilities from causing damage to the environment. If it were implemented, they would know they would be held legally and financially accountable.

Why does the Minister not give more priority to this sort of issue? He is a Green Party Minister and the directive is about protecting the environment. The Minister could make his mark with this. He could put on the Statute Book something that would be there for good and protect the environment. However, he is just doing fiddly little things on climate change awareness and similar issues. Transposing the directive would be a concrete and significant move for the Minister. If he does not do it, he leaves us vulnerable as our environment may not be properly protected. What will he do about the situation?

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