By its application, the Commission of the European Communities requested the Court to declare that: – in not putting in place the criteria and detailed rules for the use of the fishing quota allocated to it, – by failing to ensure compliance with Community rules on the conservation of aquatic marine living resources by the monitoring of fishing activities, appropriate inspection of landings and the recording of catches, inspections and other controls as required by the relevant Community regulations, – by failing to prohibit provisionally fishing by vessels flying its flag or registered in its territory when the quotas allocated to it were deemed to be exhausted, and – by failing to initiate administrative or criminal proceedings against the masters of vessels infringing the regulations, Ireland had failed to carry out the obligations imposed on it by Article 9(2) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3760/92 of 20 December 1992 establishing a Community system for fisheries and aquaculture and by Articles 2, 21 and 31 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy. Ireland argued that, if the corrections to the data transmitted to the Commission were taken into account, the percentages by which the quotas had been exceeded were very insignificant. The Court held that, even taking the corrections into account, the fact none the less remained that the quotas for the haddock and anglerfish stocks had been exceeded. According to settled case-law, a Member State was guilty of a failure to fulfill its Treaty obligations regardless of the frequency or the extent of the subject of the complaint. Second, Ireland submitted that, if the recordings by the Irish authorities concerning catches contained substantive errors, it was up to the Commission to correct them on the basis of its own information, and in particular by relying on the declarations as to landings in the other Member States. The Court was of the view that the Commission did not have the means required to assess the accuracy of all data provided by Member States. Finally, Ireland contended that it faced difficulties in monitoring landings of catches which were, in very large measure, made in foreign ports, in particular in Norway. The Court decided that according to settled case-law, a Member State could not rely on practical difficulties in order to justify its failure to adopt appropriate control measures and thus avoid its obligations under Community law. Under Article 2(3) of Regulation No 2847/93, each Member State was required to monitor, outside the Community fishery zone, the activities of its vessels in cases where such controls were required to ensure compliance with Community rules applicable within that zone. Thus, the arguments relied upon by Ireland were rejected. Ireland was found guilty of failing to carry out the obligations imposed on it by the said Regulations.