The EU Court of Justice has fined Ireland €4.5 million for delays in incorporating the European Electronic Communications Code into national law.
The code establishes a set of updated rules to regulate the internal market for telecoms networks, services and associated facilities.
It aims to stimulate competition and increased investment in 5G and very high capacity networks.
The European Commission has accused Ireland of failing to adopt the necessary measures to establish the code.
The ECJ has ruled that Ireland did fail to fulfil its obligations under the relevant EU directive.
The directive was to be transposed and incorporated into the national law of EU member states by December 2020.
Following Ireland’s request for an extension, a new deadline was set for February 2022.
Ireland justified the transposition delay by claiming that it was impossible to incorporate the directive into national law due to the new constitutional requirements decided in the Irish Supreme Court judgment of Zalewski v Adjudication Office.
In June 2023, Ireland informed the court that it had transposed the directive, with the exception of Article 110, which was transposed in November 2023.
The European Commission informed the court that Ireland's transposition of the directive could be deemed to be completed by 1 December 2023.
The commission said it was partially withdrawing its action and adapting its claim that Ireland should be ordered to pay a fine of €5.1m.
"The infringement persisted for 1,073 days - a very long time span, even considering the uncontested exceptional conditions linked to the Covid pandemic," the court ruled.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said Ireland accepts the judgment and will study it in detail.
"The directive represents a review and consolidation of the entire regulatory regime for the electronic communications sector in Europe and replaces four previous standalone directives," the spokesperson said.
"Transposition of the Code was completed in November of 2023.
"The completion of the transposition prior to the ruling of the court mitigated daily fines being imposed on Ireland for continued non-compliance."
