Stringent quality requirements for drinking water supplies are prescribed by EU and national standards. Local sanitary authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that drinking water meets these standards. This duty is performed under the general supervision of the EPA which publishes a report annually on the quality of drinking water in Ireland and carries out random auditing of sanitary authorities focusing on reported non-compliance with quality standards. The annual EPA report includes data on the quality of drinking water, based on sampling and analysis, and includes the conclusions and recommendations of the EPA as to any action required to redress quality deficiencies. Copies are sent by the EPA to all sanitary authorities and the report is available in the Oireachtas Library.

The EPA report for 2001 confirms the fundamentally good quality of Irish drinking water with an overall compliance rate of 94.3% with prescribed standards, based on 14 principal parameters including aluminium. The report is based on the results of some 146,000 individual tests on over 22,000 samples of drinking water taken from 2,440 supplies, including 6,704 tests for aluminium.

The report indicates a compliance rate of 91.3% with the aluminium standard. Aluminium in the form of aluminium sulphate salt is used as a coagulant for colour and colloidal-removal in the treatment of water for drinking supplies. A quality standard of 0.2 mg per litre is prescribed in relation to aluminium in accordance with the WHO Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality.

The EPA attributes the majority of the aluminium exceedances (i.e. instances of non-compliance) to poor control of the alum dosing at water treatment plants and to old plants where addition of alum is problematic. The EPA recommends that the alum dosing regime should be examined in cases where exceedances occur and that corrective action should be taken at each of the treatment plants concerned. The EPA also recommends the adoption of a documented management systems approach to the management and operation of treatment plants to assist sanitary authorities in the elimination of exceedances.

I fully support the recommendations of the EPA in this regard and I welcome the introduction of random auditing and other measures by the EPA to secure improved performance by local authorities. In addition, I will shortly be announcing details of funding for a major new water conservation programme that will have among its objectives the improvement of the general efficiency of the operation of public water supplies. The programme will produce an improvement nationwide in service levels and security of supply and will facilitate greater focus by local authorities on meeting prescribed quality standards for drinking water.