Request comes after failing to implement EU nitrates directive and to tacklefarm pollution.
The Government is seeking to postpone implementing the EU nitrates directive for four years because of the difficulties of bringing Irish agricultural practices into compliance with its terms.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, some public water supplies are consistently in breach of standards for nitrates pollution, and it has identified intensive farming as the main culprit.
The EU directive requires all member states to set limits on the spreading of slurry and fertilisers on farmland in order to protect water quality. The proposed Irish limit is 210 kilograms per hectare.
Adopted in 1991, the nitrates directive was to have been transposed into Irish law by 1995. But the Government now wants a formal derogation, under which it would be "parked" until 2008.
Only Denmark has been granted such a derogation so far, while the Netherlands recently lost a case taken by the EU Commission to the European Court of Justice for failing to comply with the directive's terms.
The EU Commission has been pursuing Ireland since 1995 over its failure to implement the regulations designed to cut pollution caused by bad farming practices and it initiated legal action on the issue in 2001.
Last July, the advocate general of the European Court of Justice said Ireland had failed to identify waters that are either polluted or at risk of pollution from nitrates within the time limits specified.
He also found that it failed to notify the EU Commission of these waters, to designate vulnerable zones, to establish action programmes and to "correctly and completely carry out monitoring and review" of waters.
In anticipation of this ruling, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, announced that the entire State was to be designated as a nitrate-sensitive area, to protect rivers and lakes against agricultural pollution.
Details of an action programme were to be developed in consultation with farming organisations and other interests, in line with the national partnership agreement "Sustaining Progress".
Mr Cullen conceded that agriculture "is the last major sector which remains largely unregulated in terms of waste management", despite "the very large quantities of organic waste which arise in farming". However, under the Common Agricultural Policy reforms, "cross-compliance" with other EU directives means that farmers could lose € 500 million in subsidies unless the use of fertilisers is controlled.
Last January, the Minister conceded that Ireland will not be able to meet the terms of the new EU regulations on drinking-water quality when they come into force on New Year's Day, particularly for private water schemes.
The Water Services Bill, published this week was meant to deal with some of these problems. But the Labour Party spokesman on the environment, Mr Eamon Gilmore TD, said it should be rejected by the Dáil.
He claimed that it was a "Trojan horse" for the introduction of domestic water charges through metering and for the privatisation of water supply services, while giving immunity against legal action over their performance.
But Mr Cullen immediately hit back, branding Mr Gilmore's claims as "bogus". He insisted that a new licensing system for larger group water schemes was "about ensuring good quality" rather than privatisation.
However, though the Minister insisted that the position on water charges was "not changed one iota" by the Bill, senior EU Commission officials said that charging for water use was an integral part of the new Water Framework Directive.
