THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has initiated legal action against the Irish government over its apparent failure to create new laws preventing measures that “may harm the natural and man-made heritage of the countryside”.

In a press statement published today, the Commission said it was to take Ireland to the European Court of Justice over its failure to create laws giving legal effect to a directive published in 1985, which required countries to consider new rules assessing the environmental impact of construction projects.

The Commission said its case was based on an ECJ finding from 2008, which found that Ireland’s current rules – where projects of a certain size or nature, including water management projects, were not subject to an environmental assessment impact – were too high.

Ireland had received a letter from the Commission urging it to comply with the 1985 directive in March of 2010, but had yet to adopt any legislation to remedy the problem, it said.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment this evening told TheJournal.ie that the case was “complex” and that the Department had been in contact with Brussels “on an ongoing basis” in trying to put together a legal response that satisfied the 2008 judgment.

He added that Ireland had sent “detailed proposals” to the Commission, which had seen Ireland propose to reduce its mandatory thresholds for environmental impact assessments by up to 95 per cent in some areas.

Ireland was considering a response to the judgment, the Department added, and would finalise its response in the coming weeks.

Brussels said it was also set to ask the court to impose a fine on Ireland of over €4,000 for every day since the 2008 judgment, and an extra fine of €33,000 for every day between the ruling in this new case and whenever Ireland enacts a law giving it legal effect in Ireland.

Those fines would amount to €3.24m as of today, and could likely exceed €4m or higher by the time a ruling is delivered in the case. The Department of Health spokesman said Ireland’s response hoped to ensure that no fines would be imposed.