Action is under way to address the poor quality of drinking water throughout the State, Minister for the Environment John Gormley said today.
Mr Gormley said progress to improve water quality was "too slow and needs to be accelerated".
Minister for the Environment John Gormley
The Minister was responding to a report published by the Environmental Protection Agency that reveals over a third of all public water supplies are a potential risk to public health and will have to be replaced, upgraded or closed down.
Recommending an urgent, large-scale investment programme, The Provision and Quality of Drinking Water in Irelandreport concludes that "while many have taken the quality of drinking water in Ireland for granted in the past, this can no longer be the case".
The report reveals that 36 per cent of public water supplies - 339 out of a total of 944 - indicated persistent problems which the EPA says must be eradicated to prevent recurring incidents of harmful pollutants such as cryptosporidium or E.coli.
The situation with private group water schemes was worse, with 36 per cent of schemes having had an actual episode of contamination.
"The report raises significant issues relating to the safety and security of many of our public water supplies. We have to acknowledge the problem before we can identify the solution, and we should not shy away from that," Mr Gormley said.
He insisted there had been "significant and sustained investment" in water treatment in the last decade that had improved water quality for hundreds of thousands of people.
"However progress in some areas has been painfully slow, and the fact that 113,000 people last year had either boil notices or restricted supplies is a situation that is simply not acceptable.
"Immediate action in order to address the key issues identified by the EPA is under way," the Minister said.
He added that inspectors from his department have begun to liaise with the local authorities to identify the issues in the 339 problematic water supplies. Local authorities have been asked to draw up plans of action by the end of next month for the EPA.
But Fine Gael said the EPA report showed the Government was failing to make enough resources available in the Water Services programme for the next three years to deal with unsafe supplies.
"It is not acceptable that citizens should be subjected to drinking an unsafe supply of water and the fact that more than one third of the 944 public supplies have been placed on an "amber alert" by the EPA shows the Government needs to do far more to protect the general health of the population," said
Fine Gael environment spokesman Phil Hogan.
The Labour Party described the report as matter of major concern. It said the EPA's decision not to identify the 339 public water supplies requiring detailed testing was staggering.
"People have an absolute and unqualified right to know about the quality of the water they are drinking," Labour spokesperson Joanna Tuffy said.
"It is beyond belief that the Minister for the Environment John Gormley would tolerate a situation where the EPA would keep members of the public in the dark on a matter of such critical importance."