Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 394: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the amount of testing carried out on the Irish domestic water supply; if this testing differs from one local authority to another; if there is a central laboratory for testing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35834/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Under Article 7(2) of the European Union (Drinking Water) (No. 2) Regulations, 2007, local authorities are responsible for monitoring and testing drinking water supplies and authorities make their own arrangements in that regard. Article 7(12) of the Regulations assigns responsibility to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for oversight of local authorities' functions in relation to the monitoring and testing of drinking water.

Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 395: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on the quality of domestic water here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35835/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Recent annual reports by the Environmental Protection Agency on the quality of drinking water in Ireland indicate a sustained increase in the overall rate of compliance with all prescribed standards, from 96.1% in 2003 to 96.4% in 2004, and to 96.7% in the most recently published report for 2005. Notwithstanding these high overall compliance rates, the reports, nevertheless, have drawn attention to water quality problems in certain private group water schemes in particular, and to the shortfall in the levels of monitoring by local authorities of water supplies, particularly in these group schemes.

Statutory controls were, therefore, strengthened under the European Communities (Drinking Water) (No. 2) Regulations 2007 to underpin comprehensive supervision and monitoring regimes for both local authority and group water scheme supplies. The Regulations provide for supervision of local authority water supplies by the Environmental Protection Agency, and for the supervision of group water supplies by local authorities. In each case, the relevant supervisory authority has new powers of direct intervention, if required, to ensure that measures are taken to achieve compliance with prescribed water quality standards.

The Water Services Act 2007 provides for the introduction of a licensing system for group water scheme supplies, under local authority supervision.

I envisage that these provisions will strengthen considerably the level of monitoring and enforcement in relation to drinking water supplies, and will ensure adequacy and consistency in monitoring performance in drinking water supplies throughout the State.

The Government continues to invest very considerable resources in water services infrastructure, with some €4.7 billion provided under the new National Development Plan (2007 to 2013), in addition to the unprecedented investment of €3.7 billion under the previous Plan. Significant increases in water treatment capacity and improvements in distribution systems are being achieved as a result. Water supply schemes completed in the period 1997 to 2006 have already produced additional drinking water treatment capacity equivalent to the needs of a population of some 1.2 million.

Substantially increased sums have been invested in resolving group scheme difficulties in meeting drinking water standards. Some €130 million was invested in the Rural Water Programme in 2006 — twice what was spent in 2002, and three times more than the corresponding expenditure in 2000.

A comprehensive overhaul of sewage collection and treatment infrastructure has also been undertaken nationally to tackle pollution of surface and ground water from which water supplies are abstracted, and the capacity of Ireland's wastewater treatment infrastructure was increased by a population equivalent of 3.1m under the last National Development Plan.