Urgent need for mandatory registration of private drinking water supplies - EPA

Ellen O'Donoghue

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said there is an urgent need for mandatory registration of private drinking water supplies.

Concerns have been raised that many private supplies are not registered, despite serving schools, nursing homes, sports clubs and self-catering accommodation.

Noel Byrne, the EPA's programme manager of the drinking water and wastewater enforcement team, told Newstalk radio that everyone has a right to safe drinking water, but supplies that are not registered are not monitored.

"Many of these businesses with wells are not registered with local authorities and therefore, they’re not monitored by local authorities and that’s creating a risk to public health, so today the EPA are calling for the mandatory registration of businesses that supply water to the public from their own well, really to make sure that the proper checks are completed by the local authorities on these supply and that removes the public health risks," Mr Byrne said.

According to the EPA, over 370 private group schemes supply drinking water to 193,000 people across rural communities in Ireland, not including the businesses and public facilities that supply water from their own wells, called small private supplies.

The agency said that almost 1,700 small private supplies are registered with local authorities, but many more are not.

The EPA said that as a result, the total number of small private supplies in the country remains unknown.

Meanwhile, 24 private groups failed to meet E. coli standards in 2024, up from 13 in 2022, the agency said. Six schemes had repeat failures over two consecutive years, five of which are on long-term boil water notices.

Meeting E. coli standards is a minimum requirement in the provision of safe drinking water, and failures were recorded in 51 small private supplies that were monitored by local authorities.