A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency has found that the quality of drinking water in Ireland is high but that at the end of 2020 there were 46 vulnerable supplies serving a million people that required significant works.
However, the EPA's programme manager Noel Byrne told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that it is concerned about the vulnerability of water supplies into the future.
He said "water is safe to drink today, however we need to see Irish Water take the necessary steps to ensure it continues to be safe into the future".
Mr Byrne said that the number of vulnerable supplies reduced from 77 to 46 between 2019 and 2020.
He said that over half of the works on the vulnerable supplies have been delayed and this resulted in boil water notices being issued to 75,000 people.
He added that the current rate of removal of dead connections will take 50 years to resolve and this is unacceptable.
The EPA is calling for Irish Water to identify and remediate the reasons for the delays, some of which have been pushed back by a number of years.
Mr Byrne called for Irish Water to address with a level of urgency the issues that have resulted in boil water notice being issued in areas including areas in Co Meath supplied by the Batterstown Public Water Supply.
He said that Irish Water has a plan in place with agreed timeframes to address the shortcomings and "we need to see Irish Water deliver on those".
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