Minister Cullen Outlines Irelands Range of Action on Water Quality

06/06/2003

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Minister Cullen Outlines Ireland’s Range Of Actions On Water Quality To Mark World Environment Day

Action Programme on Nitrates will improve farming practice to prevent water pollution

Water supply leakage to be eliminated as an unsustainable and unacceptable drain on national resources and on the environment

Rapid progress to be made in bringing all rural water supplies up to a consistently high standard

In a statement today (5 June 2003) on the World Environment Day theme “Water - Two Billion People are Dying for It”, Mr Martin Cullen TD, Minister for the Environment and Local Government, said that “in Ireland we have cause to be thankful that we have abundant supplies of water to drink, to support industry and agriculture, and to facilitate all the other uses that sustain our overall quality of life”.

The Minister said that Irish people were becoming increasingly conscious that water was a precious commodity and that they needed “to take more account of the impact of everyday activities and lifestyles on the quality of water which is fundamental to our very existence”. In the past few days the Minister announced that he has made regulations identifying the whole national territory of Ireland as the area for which an action programme will be established and applied under the EU Nitrates Directive. The regulations are designed to protect water against pollution associated with agriculture.

The action programme will provide for a range of measures to strengthen the application of established “good housekeeping” rules for farming in all areas. It will consist primarily of measures to provide better protection for the environment at farm level and to monitor the effect of these measures on farming practices and water quality. “This approach,” the Minister said, “aims to secure better protection for the environment by the application of good agricultural practice on a more consistent basis.”

Commenting on the regulations, the Minister said: “Good agricultural practice is in the interests of farmers as well as the environment and should be the established norm for all farmers.” The action programme will be developed over the coming months in consultation with farming organisations and other interested parties.

The Minister has also just announced a new National Water Conservation Programme designed to identify and substantially reduce the levels of unaccounted for water in Ireland’s public water supply network. “We know from studies that up to 47% of all water produced by our treatment plants is unaccounted for. While a good proportion of this will undoubtedly be traced to unrecorded consumers through proper metering and recording (which will be part of the new programme), there is no doubt that a very significant amount of water leaks into the ground every day. That represents an unsustainable and unacceptable drain on national resources and on the environment itself”.

The Minister pointed out that the availability of reliable supplies of potable water were fundamental to our wellbeing as a nation both from the point of view of public health and our ability to continue to grow our economy. “Treated water is a limited resource and the demand for it must be met in a sustainable way. My decision to allocate over €276 million for the first round of the new nation-wide water conservation programme demonstrates the Government’s commitment to maximising efficiency in the way our drinking water resources are managed and utilised. Our public water supplies are first rate by any standard but there is always room for improvement. By reducing pressure on demand through better management, local authorities will be able to bring even greater focus to bear on the quality of water they supply to consumers”.

As far as consumers themselves were concerned, the Minister warned that they too “must be vigilant that potential gains from infrastructural improvements under the water conservation programme are not lost through carelessness. Everyone needs to treat water as a very valuable and finite resource. Treated water costs money to produce. Wasting it means expense to the consumer and greater demands on the environment”. For this reason the Minister said that he intended to allow local authorities to use a portion of the new allocations for information and awareness campaigns designed to highlight what individual consumers can themselves do to reduce water usage and demand on water resources.

Referring to the government’s campaign to deal with difficulties affecting some private group water schemes in rural areas, the Minister said he regarded it as a top priority to accelerate the provision treatment and disinfection facilities to bring drinking water quality up to the highest standards for the 4% of households involved nationally. “The majority of these community-run schemes lack basic water treatment and disinfection equipment and cannot supply water to meet today’s consumer expectations. A massive upgrading programme is now underway. Funding of €100m from my Department in 2003 will set in train, this year, improvement works aided by 100% Exchequer grants, that will benefit 38,000 out of the 50,000 rural households that depend on these schemes.” The Minister said that he was working in close partnership with the group scheme sector to advance the improvement programme as quickly as possible throughout the country and that this, coupled with the funding now available, would ensure that there would be “rapid progress in bringing all rural water supplies up to a consistently high standard”.