Environmental record slammed by Labour

Labour has slammed the Government's environmental record following the announcement that the European Commission is to take Ireland to court over breaches of EU law.

The violations include sewage treatment in different counties; the Tynagh mines and the Derrybrien landslide in Galway.

Labour MEP Proninsias De Rossa has said today’s announcement was a terrible indictment of the Government.

"It has a lot to say about their failure to actually implement the environmental laws, which they have accepted which they negotiated in the first place, agreed with the European parliament, transposed into Irish law and then they failed to implement them properly," he said.

"Ireland indeed has quite a high transposition rate, it has most of the European laws actually in place but it fails on many occasions to actually conform with those laws."