Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 187: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he has received correspondence from the European Commission dated 15 January 2007 regarding the Working Time Directive; if he responded by the deadline of 1 March 2007; the main points of his response; his views on whether Ireland is in compliance with the European Court of Justice judgments on on-call time, in particular the SiMAP and Jaeger cases, reference C303/98 and C151/02 respectively, as well as the Pfeiffer C-397/01 and Dellas C-14/04 cases; the steps he will take to ensure full compliance with the on-call provisions of the Working Time Directive and the relevant ECJ judgments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9243/07]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I have received a letter from the European Commission on the transposition into Irish law of the Working Time Directive with a request that observations be provided no later than two months from the date of receipt of the letter. I understand that broadly similar letters have issued to twenty-two other Member States. A response is currently being prepared and will issue within the timeframe of the request by the Commission i.e. by 17th March 2007.

Ireland endeavours to meet in full its obligations under European law and will continue to do so. On the basis of observations provided by Ireland, the Commission in its role as guardians of the Treaty will now be in a position to draw its own conclusions on the extent to which Irish legislation transposes the requirements of the Directive, having regard to rulings from the European Court of Justice.