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The Government has been fined €2m by the European Commission for failing to regulate the installation and use of almost 500,000 septic tanks.

 In addition, the EU is imposing a daily fine of €12,000 per day as and from today for breach of a 2009 ruling until the issue is properly addressed.

 Babara Nolan, head of representation at the EU Commission Office in Dublin, says the Irish taxpayer is about to take a costly hit because of Governmental delay on this matter.

 "Hopefully the authorities will move quickly to correct the situation," she said.

 These are the first judgments of this kind against Ireland.

 "Today's judgments also remind the Member States of their duty to implement the judgments of the Court in a timely manner and that the failure to do so carries the risk of financial sanctions," said a European Commission statement.

 "This also illustrates that poor implementation of environmental law has costs. It is estimated that failure to implement environment legislation costs the EU economy around economy around €50bn every year in health costs and direct costs to the environment."

 Two separate judgments were handed down against the State at the European Court of Justice yesterday.

The first related to the State’s failure to properly regulate the installation and use of septic tanks, following an initial Court of Justice ruling in 2009. For this the State was ordered to pay €2 million and fined an ongoing €12,000 per day, from yesterday, until the situation is rectified.

 Environmental impact

 The second case involved the State’s failure to impose environmental impact assessments on projects relating to irrigation or land drainage which did not take sensitive countryside features fully into account. In this case the State was fined €1.5 million but no daily fine was imposed.

 The court heard discharges from septic tanks, of which there are close to 500,000 in the Republic, have contributed to microbiological pollution of ground water and nutrient pollution of surface water. Prosecuting the case, the EU Commission argued that poorly designed, located or maintained tanks put human health at risk due to the danger of pathogens entering drinking water.

 How much this daily fine will amount to was unclear yesterday. Mr Hogan said the Environmental Protection Agency was finalising a septic tank inspection programme and this would be ready early next year. When this takes place the State would be compliant and the daily fines would then stop. Mr Hogan said the cases were “legacy issues” which preceded his time in office.

 ‘Tip of the iceberg’

 However, Mr Hogan’s failure to deal with the issue before the State was fined led to criticism from a broad range of environmental and political organisations last night.

 MEP Marian Harkin said the State had had nearly 20 years to implement the EU water framework directive. An Taisce chairman Charles Stanley-Smith said the daily fine amounted to “a civil servant’s annual salary every four days and will continue until a satisfactory registration, inspection and maintenance regime is in place”.

 The Environmental Pillar, a coalition of 26 national environmental groups, warned the fines were “just the tip of the iceberg”. Spokesman Michael Ewing said “damage is being done to our natural resources on a daily basis and there will be huge long-term economic costs in trying to fix the problems”.

 The group Friends of the Irish Environment and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan separately said the fines were “a wake-up call”