Extra powers will shortly be given to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prosecute local authorities guilty of pollution, Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said.
Under the new rules, all waste water treatment plans will be subject to licence by the EPA and prosecutions will follow if breaches take place.
Mr Gormley last month increased the penalties that can be imposed on farmers for using too much nitrate fertilisers and slurry on their lands, which ended the threat of fines from the European Commission .
Under the changes made in early August, offenders could face a six-month jail sentence and three months in jail for summary offences and €500,000 and three years in jail for indictable offences. The Irish Farmers' Association complained at the time that the Minister should have put legislation through the Oireachtas before increasing the fines, rather than introducing them by regulation.
Farmers had complained that they could be subject to new fines while no action was taken against local councils, which are often blamed for some of the worst pollution in Irish rivers.
The regulations introduced last month brought Ireland into compliance with the 1991 European Union nitrates directive.
"I want to ensure that we comply across the board with EU directives," said Mr Gormley, during a two-day meeting of the Green Party in Brook Lodge, near Aughrim, Co Wicklow.
"Ireland was for long the environmental delinquent of Europe," said Mr Gormley, adding that a new €6 billion plan will guarantee clean water supplies everywhere by 2015.
Asked about local objections to plans to open a new 500,000 tonnes a year landfill in Lusk, Co Dublin, Mr Gormley said it would be "illegal" for him to interfere.
The EPA has announced a proposed decision to grant a licence to Fingal County Council to develop the landfill site at Nevitt, Lusk. with 130 conditions. Objectors have 28 days to register appeals.
"It is actually a criminal offence to interfere in the licensing of dumps. What do you expect me to do? Comment on something that I can't comment upon?" Mr Gormley said, in reply to questions.
"What we have said very clearly is that we need to change the way we look at waste. We can't go on guaranteeing waste streams to unsustainable waste management industries.
"Landfill has to be seen in a different way, by removing the bio-degradable material. "There can be no quick-fix solution. We must increase reduce, reuse and recycle rates up to 50 per cent from the current 35 per cent," he added.
