Roche seeks Galway water report

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said today the contamination of drinking water was "not acceptable" and demanded local authorities to do more to keep it clean.

Speaking at his party's Ardfheis in Dublin today, Mr Roche said he had asked the Galway City Manager for a report on the contamination of water supplies in Galway city and county by cryptosporidium.

"My Department has made the funding available to Galway City to upgrade the Galway City Water Treatment Plant and I will be asking the Council to accelerate its progress on this project," he told delegates.

He said the Government had provided "massive funding" to improve the State's water services and urged Fianna Fáil councillors around the country to monitoring water supplies.

"This investment must be protected by ongoing monitoring and maintenance of this new infrastructure.

"However, Custom House cannot micro-manage the affairs of local authorities up and down the country. That's why I ask Fianna Fáil members to show the lead, to ask the questions, to check up on the gaps and to ensure that these gaps are closed."

The European Commission last week expressed its concern at the continued presence of E.coli in some Irish drinking water supplies despite substantial Government investment.

The commission said on Thursday it was sending Ireland a final written warning for failing to fully comply with a 2002 European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling requiring drinking water supplies to be kept free of the potentially deadly bacteria.

In the legal notice the commission concludes that more than half of private group water supplies in Cavan, Kerry, Leitrim, Mayo, Donegal and Sligo breached the EU's E.coli standard in 2005.

It pinpoints animal waste, defective septic tanks and the absence of proper treatment as some of the causes of the high levels of the bacteria.