Martin’s ‘failure’ over EU rule leads to daily fines from Brussels
CATHERINE Martin has been accused of a ‘bureaucratic failure’ that has cost taxpayers €2.5million in fines, plus daily fines of €10,000.
Senator Michael McDowell has sharply criticised the Media Minister for her failure to implement the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), leading to fines from the European Commission.
A special Seanad committee was established to catch EU laws and directives that were not being transposed into Irish legislation on time, resulting in financial penalties from Brussels.
Mr McDowell said this had occurred only after ‘grave difficulty and resistance from some quarters in the permanent government of Ireland.’
He said: ‘We have had a number of meetings of the committee, and we have been almost constantly faced with a foot-dragging approach.’
The primary legislation to transpose the directive was enacted by the Oireachtas and the minister, Ms Martin.
But the European Commission has now ‘found that failure to follow that up with guidelines and implementation procedures has amounted, in effect, to a failure by the Irish State to implement a European directive’, Mr McDowell said.
He told the Mail: ‘A bureaucratic failure is costing the state a lump-sum fine of €2.5million and a daily fine of €10,000. Two things that must now happen are that the current committee must be able to examine the follow-on arrangements, which are necessary to ensure implementation of a directive.’
He said the second thing is that the Government must ‘change the standing orders of the committee to make it clear that we cannot have a situation where these types of situations are concealed from us.’
He added: ‘The current consequence of failing to act is that €10,000 a day is being lost due to non-action by the Irish State.’
Mr McDowell also warned it is time to empower the committee to ensure that ‘we are not playing blind-man’s buff and being deceived by the Executive as to what is really happening behind the scenes with the failure of the Irish Government to implement directives.’
The leader of the Seanad, Fianna Fáil senator Lisa Chambers, echoed Mr McDowell’s concerns about bureaucratic resistance
She said in the Chamber: ‘It was a significant challenge to get that committee up and running. There was huge pushback from certain elements, but notwithstanding that, the committee is up and running.’
She also committed to ‘work with committee members and make sure that their work is facilitated at the earliest opportunity given the fact that the State is continuing to incur fines on a daily basis.’
A spokesman for Ms Martin’s department said: ‘Ireland accepts the judgment and is studying it in detail.’
They claimed: ‘The fines are significantly lower than the maximum levels that were open to the court to impose.’
The spokesman added that a key factor in the delay is that ‘it was necessary not only to enshrine the AVMSD in Irish law, but to establish a new regulator to oversee its implementation’. This, they said ‘contributed to delays in the transposition process.’
The regulator in question is Coimisiún na Meán, the new online safety and media regulator.
The spokesman said: ‘Full transposition will be achieved once Coimisiún na Meán adopts online safety and media services codes.’
Since the regulator’s establishment in March 2023, they said, ‘the Government has provided substantial funding (€10.5million in 2023 and around €6million in 2024) and sanctioned significant recruitment for 164 posts to enable An Coimisiún to carry out its functions’.
‘It’s costing the State €2.5m’