Vol. 436 No. 4
44 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment if he will impose an enforceable legal responsibility on local authorities who levy water charges to guarantee a minimum quality of water supply and provide for full or partial refunds of charges where it can be demonstrated that quality did not meet such minimum quality standards.
The European Communities (Quality for Water Intended for Human Consumption) Regulations, 1988, place a duty on all sanitary authorities to ensure that water intended for human consumption meets the strict quality standards set out in the Regulations. Monitoring results to date confirm the generally good quality of Irish public drinking water supplies.
Where a water supply does not comply with the quality standards set out in the Regulations, the sanitary authority concerned must prepare a remedial action programme, and related capital works have a priority status within the water and sanitary services programme.
The making of charges for local authority services generally is governed by the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (No. 2) Act, 1983 and later amendments. I have no proposals to amend this legislation.
