The matter in question is a technical one. This Directive provides for sharing of information on road traffic offences between EU Member States. Under the Directive, law enforcement authorities in each Member State may use vehicle registrations to check for records of offences in other Member States.
Ireland transposed the Directive in question by means of the European Union (Facilitation of Cross-Border Exchange of Information on Road-Safety-Related Traffic Offences) Regulations 2017 (S.I. No. 371 of 2017). Furthermore, my Department, in conjunction with EU authorities, put in place the necessary IT connections to enable the operation of exchanges of data under the Directive.
The actual making of outgoing requests is a matter for the Garda Síochána and that of making incoming requests is, obviously, a matter for law-enforcement in other Member States.
The question of possible infringement relates to the formal submission to the EU Commission of a report on exchanges that have taken place under the Directive, rather than to compliance with any of the substantive requirements of the Directive. My officials are currently addressing this technical issue and I am confident that it will be resolved satisfactorily for all concerned shortly.
