Many private water suppliers are failing to ensure their water is safe to drink.

A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that one-in-20 private water supplies in Ireland does not meet safety standards.

That is compared to one-in-200 for public supplies.

On Newstalk Breakfast, EPA programme manager Noel Byrne said suppliers can access State funding to improve water quality.

"The water in private supplies hasn't improved in recent years," he said.

"What we're seeing is one in 20 contaminated wells with E. coli continuing for the last couple of years.

"Last year it affected 6,000 people; and that's compared to maybe one in 200 for public supplies.

"We're quite a difference there between the private supplies and the public supplies.

"The report also [found] for the 1,700 private supplies, over a quarter of these were not monitored - which provides really no assurance to the quality how safe it is to consume".