As regards the overall water quality of rivers, the Water Framework Directive obliges Member States to ensure good water quality ('good status') as a rule by 2015.

Commenting on the findings of the Commissioner of the Environment’s 2005 audit of safe drinking water on reserve, Jerome Berthelette of the Office of the Auditor General indicated to the Committee that the “department did not have sufficient proof that the water treatment plants were either built to the standard they wanted it to be built or expected it to be built to, and that there were no deficiencies with respect to the water treatment plant” ([11]) In other words, the Department had not adequately identified existing deficiencies with respect to both the ability of the plant to produce the quantity and quality of water required, as ...[+++]well as the construction of the plant itself.

1. The Commission shall be assisted by a committee, called "the Ambient Air Quality Committee", hereinafter "the Committee".

Currently, the Federal-Provincial Subcommittee on Drinking Water is responsible for regular revision and updating of a national guideline for drinking water quality.

While the Irish authorities now seem to be moving in the right direction, persistently bad monitoring results point to years of neglect, and it is clear that much more needs to be done in terms of improved source protection and water treatment before all Irish consumers receive the quality of drinking water to which they have been entitled since 1985".

The drinking water safety program essentially provides that mechanism for advice in support of communities operating and maintaining their systems, identifying and resolving water quality issues and establishing water quality sampling and monitoring surveillance programs.