There has never been more money invested in water quality in this State, yet some communities are still being warned not to drink their water.
Last week's E.coli contamination of Sligo's water supply has brought the issue into sharp focus again. The source of this contamination has not been identified but E.coli indicates the presence of human or animal faecal matter in water. The E.coli strain found in water is not the same as the potentially fatal E.coli O157 found in undercooked meat or unpasteurised milk.
Similar E.coli contaminations were discovered in Roscommon and Mayo in recent weeks.
These contaminations come just a month after the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, announced a £2.1 billion investment in water and sewerage services - a threefold increase in the Government's last allocation under the National Development Programme.
Rural water schemes have unprecedented funding - the group water schemes will receive £420 million up to 2006.
Meanwhile, EU legal action looms over the State's failure to ensure that our drinking water meets EU standards. This could result in significant fines for breaches dating back as far as 1985. Friends of the Environment - the group which spurred this case - say the Government could be prosecuted within a year unless radical action is taken.
The discovery of E.coli in Sligo's water supply was described as unexpected by Dr Paul Toner, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Programme Manager. "It is rather surprising that this has occurred in a public supply," he said, adding that such contaminations were much more common in group or private water supplies. The last EPA drinking water report showed that 42 per cent of group water schemes were contaminated. Some 80 per cent of these contaminated schemes contained faecal bacteria. Meanwhile, 8 per cent of public supplies were contaminated with bacteria. Half of these contaminated supplies contained faecal bacteria. A further 5 per cent had odour problems while 3 per cent had taste problems.
The issuing of "notice to boil" warnings is not as catastrophic as some people think, according to Mr Ray Norton, Mayo County Council Environment Section. "It merely indicates that water has been in contact with waste from animals/humans at some stage. The water could be perfectly harmless but we must take the precaution of issuing warnings," he said. The Department of the Environment does not see the recent E.coli contaminations as a bad sign for the quality of our drinking water. "This is not the start of a worrying trend," a spokesman for the Department said. "This happens on occasion with the public supplies." He said the Department was doing everything in its power to improve the quality of drinking water. In Sligo, he said funding had been approved for full treatment facilities for Kilsallagh reservoir, where the problems originated. Mr Seamus Concannon, a spokesman for Sligo Corporation said the Department must move quickly to approve the plans for this reservoir as it could take up to three years to have the new system in operation.
But where is the pollution coming from? "We will probably never be able to identify the source of this pollution," said Mr Concannon. Friends of the Irish Environment blame two sources for the pollution. "We believe agriculture is the biggest cause, particularly slurry spreading," said an FIE spokesman. "This is closely followed by all the ribbon developments around the country. All of these have septic tanks and many of them are badly built."
He said water quality was deteriorating instead of improving despite the vast funds being allocated to it. "Since 1985, the only time the Government takes action to address it is when they have been threatened by the EU Commission."
Mr Jim Devlin, Secretary of the IFA's Environmental Committee defended the role of farmers and pointed to the major take-up of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme. "There are almost 50,000 farmers in this scheme now," he said. Mr Devlin also pointed to the new by-laws being introduced by county councils which govern areas such as slurry spreading.
"We have the by-laws in Cork and Cavan now. They have been published in North Tipperary and Westmeath and they are expected in Longford and Offaly," Mr Devlin said.
He added that farmers were without any grant-aided pollution scheme for several years in the mid-1990s. "And it's a proven fact that capital works automatically follow these grant schemes," he said. Last year, the Department of Agriculture introduced a new control-of-farmyard-pollution scheme which will run until 2006. Ironically, while complaints about water quality increase, the number of farmers and the number of stock on the land continue to decline.
"It will take time to solve the problems," said a Department of Environment spokesman. "But this record funding package should soon start showing results."