The latest report on the quality of Irish drinking water suggests large tracts of the State have supplies on a par with a Third World country. The extent and persistence of the problem is profoundly worrying. For hundreds of communities poor water does not fit in with the kind of utilities they reasonably expect within a tiger economy.
Those most badly served are living in rural areas and are supplied by group or private water schemes they have financed themselves. Moreover, they are paying considerable annual fees; in effect, water charges. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report shows bacterial contamination is routine in many schemes. Often there are indications of serious pollution from a human health perspective such as the presence of faecal microbes - indicative of contamination by human sewage or farm animal wastes.
The report published today relates to 1997 and includes an overview going back to 1995. In short, it finds that 92 per cent of public supplies and only 64 per cent of 5,500 group and private water schemes can be considered acceptable. It, nonetheless, concludes the overall quality of Irish drinking water is "satisfactory". Notwithstanding this, there are deplorable findings within individual counties, so much so that their local authorities will find it almost impossible to adhere to stricter quality demands in the forthcoming EU water directive.
The report says the overall satisfactory quality should not be interpreted by sanitary authorities as grounds for complacency, and it even detects some overall improvement within the group scheme sector - before sizeable funding was targeted at such schemes by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey; £50 million for capital works and £3 million to investigate best treatment options.
The reality is, however, that for several hundred thousand people, water quality is not what it should be and many resent the now familiar "satisfactory" classification. They argue that funding of several hundred million pounds for group schemes is necessary. They will draw little comfort from the EPA warning that "significant numbers of drinking waters are still bacteriologically unfit for human consumption".
Since 1997, according to the National Federation of Group Water Schemes, good work has been done in a new partnership between them, the Department of the Environment and local authorities, even if some local authorities are reluctant participants. With structural funds declining, public-private partnerships represent the means to plug infrastructural gaps. Local authorities must be fully participative. If those authorities remain in any doubt about what is needed, a careful reading of this EPA report will set them straight. In many rural areas, chlorination or disinfection is all but unheard of. The risks from such lax practices are colossal at a time when E coli 0157 and the notorious Cryptosporidium pathogens are increasingly to be found in Irish water. All round, a case for extreme vigilance and sustained commitment.