Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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1057. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the steps he is taking to ensure that Ireland meets its compliance requirements under EU Directive 2015/413/EU. [13265/19]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The Directive in question, which is commonly referred to as the Cross Border Exchange Directive, relates to sharing of vehicle registration information between EU Member States in order to address certain road traffic offences.

I transposed the necessary legislation into national law in 2017. The required technical measures to link into the EU-wide system were also put in place by my Department. It is a matter for An Garda Síochána, should they so wish, to make requests through the system for information from other Member States.

I understand that to date An Garda Síochána have not used the system, and no requests have issued to Ireland through the system for information from other Member States.

The Directive also requires Member States to report to the EU Commission on the number of outgoing requests made under the system, the types of offences involved, and the type of follow-up action taken. As there was no request made there was nothing to report. This raised a technical question as to whether a report specifying that there was nothing to report was required.

The EU Commission took the view that, even in cases where there was nothing to report, a formal report stating that fact should be provided to them. As Ireland had not provided such report within the required timeframe, the EU initiated infringement proceedings earlier this year. My Department subsequently provided the Commission with the necessary report - inevitably a simple statement that there was nothing to report - and the Commission has now indicated that it will be discontinuing the infringement proceedings.