Lisbon guarantees are a little watery

COULD the EU vice-president Margot Wallstrom who expressed confidence in the legal guarantees for Ireland in Lisbon II in Cork recently be the same Margot Wallstrom who, as environment commissioner, failed to enforce the legal guarantees contained in the drinking water directive (98/83/EC) in Ireland in 2001, despite our direct appeal to her?

In the treatment of raw water for drinking, Article 4 of the directive prohibits any increase in the pollution of the water used. Yet more than 400 public water supplies serving three million people in Ireland have the industrial pollutant, fluorosilicic acid, added by order of the health minister.

The fact that the Irish health minister then responsible for flouting the directive, Micheál Martin, is the same minister now looking for more legal guarantees from Europe simply underlines the problem at the heart of this debate.