Madam, - In her column of July 1st Mary Raftery suggests that we should pause a moment to examine what she describes as the "Government's truly shocking record of directly flouting EU law".
Before rushing into print Ms Raftery might have taken her own advice and checked the actual record. Her claim that Ireland "is one of the basket cases of Europe with regard to the compliance with EU directives" is false.
In 2001 the European Council set a target to achieve a 98.5 per cent transposition rate for EU law into national law for internal market measures.
Far from lagging behind, as Ms Raftery seems to believe, Ireland has a transposition rate of 98.8 per cent.
Ireland is now ranked fourth from the top in the league table. In contradiction to the entire tone and content of Ms Raftery's article, last January the European Commission singled Ireland out for the strides that it has made in this area.
Ms Raftery makes particular reference to environmental legislation. Her claim that Ireland has the highest number of complaints against it than any member-state is also incorrect.
Her claim that "the European Commission is prosecuting Ireland over a staggering 118 incidents of breaches of environmental law" is also false. Using freely available published sources Ms Raftery could with ease have established the actual number of environmental procedures against Ireland or any other member-state.
For the record, as of November 4th, 2003 the figure was 61. The vast majority of such procedures are resolved without any recourse to the European Court of Justice. At present there are seven legal actions under way against Ireland in respect of alleged non-compliance with EU environmental legislation.
The Government is firmly committed to ensuring that all measures agreed at EU level are transposed within the time-frame agreed at the Council of Ministers and implemented correctly. As already mentioned, Ireland is at the top of the league in terms of transposition of EU legislation and not at the bottom, as Ms Raftery suggests.
With the best will in the world difficulties will occasionally arise - as they have done in every member-state at one time or another.
The Commission has made known its willingness to work through any difficulties which member-states face and we are actively working with the Commission in a spirit of co-operation and partnership.- Yours, etc.,
DICK ROCHE, TD, Minister of State for European Affairs, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2.