Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 158: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the position regarding Ireland's steps to comply with European Directives 91/271/EEC and 76/464/EEC, following the ruling of the European Court of Justice on 2 June 2005 in case C-282/02 for not having an authorisation system for discharges from urban waste water treatment plants and other waste water infrastructure. [25837/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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I made the Waste Water Discharge (Authorisation) Regulations 2007 on 27 September 2007 to provide for the authorisation by the Environmental Protection Agency of discharges to waters from local authority waste water treatment works and collection systems. These regulations implement Article 6(2) of Directive 2006/11/EC (which replaced Directive 76/464/EEC) on pollution caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment, which requires discharges that are liable to contain any of a range of substances to have prior authorisation by a competent authority.

Compliance with the requirements of the EU Directive 91/271/EEC in relation to secondary treatment of wastewater discharges has risen from 25% at the start of 2000 to 90% at present. All remaining schemes required to achieve full compliance are included in my Department's Water Services Investment Programme 2007-2009.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 159: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the position in relation to the European Commission infringement procedure no. 1997/4409 on Ireland's failure to respect obligations regarding microbiological standards for drinking water as set out in the Drinking Water Directive 80/778/EEC and gaps in Irish legislation governing private water supplies. [25838/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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The position in this case is that a judgment against Ireland was made by the European Court of Justice on 14 November 2002 in relation to the quality of over 1600 public and group scheme drinking water supplies. Since then, my Department has put in place an extensive programme of remediation measures for both the public schemes and the group water schemes cited in the judgment and has reported regularly to the Commission on progress under this programme and on the monitoring results for those schemes.

An Article 228 Reasoned Opinion regarding this case was issued by the Commission in March 2007 and a response issued to the Commission in May 2007. There is ongoing consultation between my officials and the Commission in relation to this case and it is one of the infringement cases that I discussed at my meeting with Commissioner Dimas in July, shortly after taking up office.

In relation to the transposition of the Directive, the European Communities (Drinking Water) (No. 2) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 278 of 2007) were made on 12 June 2007. These Regulations apply to both public drinking water supplies and group water scheme supplies. Following formal notification to the Commission by my Department of the making of these Regulations, the Commission has indicated that it is satisfied that the Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EEC (which replaced the Drinking Water Directive 80/778/EEC) has been fully transposed into Irish law.