Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 243: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will report on Ireland's progress in transposing the EU internal market directives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27149/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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A fully functioning Single Market is of crucial importance for growth, competitiveness and employment in Europe and, in this respect, the timely and correct transposition of EU Internal Market Directives into national law plays a vitally important role.

The European Commission's Internal Market Scoreboard, published twice a year, highlights how successful each Member State has been in conforming to the transposition deadlines of Internal Market legislation. At the moment, each Member State is required to have 98.5% of its Internal Market Directives transposed by the due date, i.e. a deficit of no more than 1.5%. The European Council has imposed a new deficit target of 1% to apply from 2009.

Ireland's transposition deficits since the first Internal Market Scoreboard was published in November 1997 are set out in the table below. It is anticipated that Ireland's deficit rating for the December 2007 Scoreboard will be under the 1.5% target.