Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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500. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the actions he will take in consultation with local authorities and Irish Water to redress one of the findings of the Environmental Protection Agency in its report entitled Provision and Quality of Drinking Water in Ireland: A Report for the Year 2012 which states that only six water services authorities are publishing some or all of the required data on drinking water quality; and if Irish Water will make this data available to the public on a national basis. [19526/14]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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In July 2009 , my Department issue d a Circular letter to local authorities requesting publication of drinking water quality monitoring results by the authorities , with access to th ose results being made available directly from the homepages of their websites. The circular specified that results for particular parameters must be published along with description s and the significance of those parameters. It also recommended that certain other information be published. In its recent report Provision and Quality of Drinking Water in Ireland: A Report for the Year 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency found that at the time only 6 local authorities were in substantive compliance with the requirements of the Circular. However, the report also state d that 31 out of 34 local authorities were providing informa tion on drinking water monitoring results.

The European Union (Drinking Water) Regulations 2014, a copy of which is available in the Oireachtas library, provide that Irish Water and each local authority shall maintain up to date records , on an ongoing basis , of monitoring results in relation to each water supply that they are required to monitor under the Regulations. The Regulations also provide that the records shall be made available to the public.

Irish water has confirmed to my Department that it is aware of the requirement to publish up to date records of drinking water monitoring results. To this end , Irish Water is working closely with all l ocal a uthorities to ensure compliance with this requirement and significant improvements in the level of reporting have been achieved. Irish Water ’s website () has recently been updated to provide a link to water quality i nformation at local authority level and Irish Water is committed to work with the local authorities so that timely information can be made available to the public directly from the company’s website. This will ensure consistency in the level and formatting of reporting across all public water suppl ies nationally. The local authorities continue to be obliged to publish monitoring results in respect of private water supplies for which they have supervisory responsibility, including group water schemes.