Mr President, the drinking-water directive, waste-management directive, major accident hazards, sewage sludge, asbestos, wild birds, waste shipment, not to mention the habitats directive, the nitrates directive and the PCB directive. The list is long, the list of the failure of my own country to transpose EU environmental law. Despite warning letters, reasoned opinions, threats of legal action to the European Court of Justice, so it embarrassingly continues. We are second worst in terms of transposition and designation of sites under the habitats directive. Sometimes, but rarely, there can be genuine reasons for delayed transposition of a directive and the nitrates directive has come in for particular mention in this regard here today. But to fail to provide information requested by the Commission under Article 10 of the Treaty in a timely and proper manner is inexcusable. That is the first step: reply to the letters of the Commission. No government should be forgiven bad manners and inappropriate behaviour. That is one of Ireland's and, I suspect, many countries' cardinal sins in relation to the area we are discussing. Article 10 requires Member States to actively cooperate with the Commission in dealing with complaints, to clarify facts and to state official positions. Only last weekend I read in the Irish media that the head of the Commission's Environment DG, Mr Curry, complained to Ireland's EU Ambassador, Mr Denis O'Leary, last autumn that the Irish authorities were not cooperating adequately with Brussels on environmental issues. Commissioner Wallström wrote last March to the Irish Minister of the Environment, Mr Dempsey, suggesting that the large number of Irish environmental complaints currently being dealt with by the EU officials be dealt with in his department or by the Irish Ombudsman. No joy, no progress, perhaps even no response – I do not know. With 1% of the Community's population, to our shame we in Ireland have been generating 10% of the Commission's environmental complaints. Mr Curry had strong words for not only our Department of the Environment but also our Department of Finances policies, our Environmental Protection Agency, our Heritage Protection Agency and, indeed, our local authorities. Sensitive and sensible implementation must be encouraged to ensure political and public cooperation and understanding of what we have to achieve. I often give the example – as I did at a committee meeting this morning – of the survival of the only cotton-weed colony in Ireland in the south-east corner of Wexford. This is on a local pilgrimage path. In its over-zealousness to protect the cotton-weed, the local council decided to ban the pilgrimage from the immediate area. It very quickly became apparent that the trampling of the pilgrims' feet and not divine intervention had, in fact, been essential to protect that particular ecosystem. Stronger and more vigorous species, better known colloquially as ‘weeds’ – even though they are all wild flowers – gained a foothold in the colony and began to choke off the cotton-weed once human intervention was gone. Changing the essential balance between human activity and our environment led to the loss of this precious ecosystem. Finally, it must not be a case of the last person off the island turning the lights off. We have to live and earn a living in these places. Equally we cannot continue to mortgage our children's health and heritage.

Political group: PPE-DE