John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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My Department's Water Services Investment Programme 2007 to 2009 includes 300 projects with an estimated value of €2.3bn to improve the extent and quality of our public water supply infrastructure. The Programme is available in the Oireachtas Library. The Environmental Protection Agency's recent publication "The Provision and Quality of Drinking Water in Ireland — A Report for the Years 2006-2007" identified 339 public water supply schemes that require detailed profiling from catchment to consumer to determine whether the supply needs to be replaced or upgraded, or where operational practices need to be improved to ensure that the water supplied to the general public is clean and wholesome.

The Agency has asked the local authorities concerned to draw up action plans to address the issues raised in each of these cases. My Department is simultaneously assessing the implications for the Water Services Investment and Rural Water Programmes. The objective is to develop an agreed set of remedial measures that will be implemented as quickly as possible. In publishing the Water Services Investment Programme 2007 — 2009 in September 2007, I indicated that a contingency funding arrangement was being put in place which will be available to address any necessary remedial measures involving infrastructural improvements.

Insofar as group water schemes are concerned, rapid progress is being achieved with the major upgrading programme to bring the sector into full compliance with national and European drinking water standards. By the end of 2007, improvement works on 70% of the schemes involved had been completed with the remaining schemes either in progress or due to come on stream in 2008. This progress will be reflected in future EPA reports on drinking water.

The Drinking Water (No 2) Regulations, 2007, strengthen the enforcement provisions in relation to drinking water standards and provide for the supervision of local authority drinking water supplies by the EPA. Local authorities continue to be responsible for supervising group water scheme supplies but all monitoring programmes are now subject to approval by the Agency. The Agency is required to supervise the performance by local authorities of their monitoring functions. Penalties for non-compliance with the requirements of the Regulations have been increased considerably with the inclusion of indictable offence provisions, and supervisory authorities now have powers of direct intervention if necessary to ensure compliance.