Ireland has failed to implement 65 EU directives within the required deadline, with one directive six years late in coming into force.
Details issued by various Government Departments show that the worst offender is the Department of Enterprise and Employment, which has 28 outstanding directives that have missed their implementation deadline.
It is followed by Environment which has 17 directives overdue.
There are 113 EU directives waiting to be implemented in 10 of the 15 Departments.
The Departments of the Taoiseach, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Tourism and Sport and Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht have no directives outstanding. Sixty-five of the 113 have missed their implementation deadline.
The longest outstanding directive deals with harmonising copyright law under the Department of Enterprise and Employment. It should have been implemented by July 1st, 1994, and the Department says the Copyright and Related Rights Bill should be enacted this month.
Details of directives awaiting implementation were given to the Fine Gael spokeswoman on social community and family affairs, Ms Frances Fitzgerald, who tabled parliamentary questions on the matter recently.
Among the 17 directives late in the Department of the Environment is one dealing with driving licences, which should have come into force on July 1st, 1996.
It also has directives on water quality and pollution prevention which it has failed to implement.
The Department of Public Enterprise has failed to implement 10 directives on time. Longest outstanding is the directive on transporting dangerous goods, which should have been implemented in January 1997.
Six directives under the aegis of the Department of Health are late.
The longest overdue is the directive on sweeteners in foodstuffs, which should have come into force in December 1997. The Department says a statutory instrument which will allow the State to comply with its EU obligations in this area will be in place by the end of this month.
The Department of Justice has two directives late, one by four months and the other by 20 months. Agriculture also has two directives late.
Ms Fitzgerald told The Irish Times yesterday that on the one hand Ireland claimed to be pro-European but on the other hand was clearly ignoring obligations under EU law.
"The figures speak for themselves. We obviously are not giving priority to this area. It is something that more attention must be paid to in the future," she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said while there were still 10 directives late in implementation, up to 15 directives had been enforced in the last year.