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THE NUMBER OF designated bathing water locations to have met the EU minimum standards last year in Ireland has risen to 140, with over 100 classified as ‘excellent’.
The latest classifications are contained in the EPA’s Bathing Water report, which sets out bathing water quality at 147 locations last summer.
95% of bathing waters met or exceeded the minimum required standard, up from 94% in 2018. Three new bathing waters were classified as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’.
However, waters at five locations failed to meet the minimum standards and were classified as ‘poor’, the same figure as in 2018.
Bathing waters is the term used for beaches and lakes identified as being used by the public for bathing and monitored under regulations.
A further 24 locations were classified as ‘good’, and 9 were classified as ‘sufficient’.
The five locations classified as ‘poor’ were:
It is this fifth year in a row that water at Merrion Strand has been classified as ‘poor’ and it will now be declassified as a bathing water this year.
Portrane (the Brook) Beach and Clifden have received a ‘poor’ classification for the past four years.
It is also the second year in a row that Lilliput, Lough Ennell in Westmeath has been classified as ‘poor’, after having received a ‘good’ classification in 2017.
Bathing water classified as ‘poor’ means there is a risk of microbiological which could potentially cause illnesses like skin rashes or gastric upset.
Local authorities are required to put notices at these areas advising people not to swim there for the entire bathing season.
Three new bathing waters, all in Dublin, were classified for the first time last year.
They were the Forty Foot Bathing Place and White Rock Beach (both classified as ‘excellent’) and Sandycove Beach (classified as ‘good’).
“Ireland has many beautiful beaches. Enjoying these natural amenities can be good for our physical and mental wellbeing, and it is therefore essential that Ireland maintains good bathing water quality,” said Marry Gurrie, programme manager of the EPA.
The EPA has also reminded anyone using or swimming at beaches this year to follow the public health advice, including the government’s roadmap for re-opening the economy, and any local information in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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For legal reasons the following may or may not have happened :) I was once in a Nissan bluebird where an entire under 16 football team was being brought to a match because the bus never turned up. 7 in the back seat sitting on knees, 3 on the front passenger seat and 5 in the boot, two lying down tight to the back seat and 3 sitting across the boot opening, boot was left open. We got there and we won :)
@Pat Maher: Love it Pat. Brilliant!!!
‘Maybe they were making a trunk call’ Ouuu! A real zinger than one! The lads down the station must have been falling around the place laughing.
@Nicky O’Donnell: Now they want to be comedians on top of everything !!
Surely should have been boot-y call
@Nicky O’Donnell: and then it went on social meeja, it was class
@Nicky O’Donnell: I bet your great fun in work
I had eight in a starlet once
@P.J. Nolan: Your mother must be so proud !
@Shane Freeney:
Ha ha, maybe I could have worded that better….
When I was in school our PE teacher brought the full U’12 football team to an away match in his Fiat Ritmo.
@Nick Allen:
Many a underage team went through that particular ritual.
Seriously? They posted that on Twitter?!
Keystone cops.
@Paul Watchorn: Why? Real police only tweet about murders?
Its the Garda TRAFFIC twitter account
Would expect nothing less from a yaris driver, across the board yaris drivers are the worst drivers on the road.
@Let free speech live: Was this your postgraduate thesis?
@Let free speech live: I’d like a journal fact check on this, please
@Let free speech live: up the yaris!
@Let free speech live: Thank god someone else thinks that, I thought I was the only one. What is it about them?!
@Let free speech live: Not true.
It’s the Nissan Micra drivers that hold that accolade.
@Dave Sherman: same class of driver but more yaris drivers than micra drivers around.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: It was actually and it was very well received.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: I would welcome it, after 10 years on the road as a hgv driver believe me they are consistently the worst. If a yaris driver indicates left there is a strong chance they will turn right.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: Ok so that was the funniest thing I’ve read in a while lol thank you !! Needed a giggle today !!!
@Dave Sherman: They’re one and the same, the Micra drivers are moving on to the Yaris now.
They found a right spare in the boot didn’t They!
Obviously someone was dropping their mother in law home.
Reminds me of my childhood back of my das opel rekord with all my cousin and sometimes my gran n aunt on holidays to Wexford. Good times so glad I have dose memory’s something about those days. I think the 2000s is truly the first time things are different.
This droll gombeen in the garda needs to be hauled in for his droll twitter remarks, the Garda line ‘we don’t comment on individual cases’ never applies to him. Who is this droll troll civil servant?
@Tom Phelan: He could easily be your brother or father Tom ‘the bore’ Phelan!
@Joe Conlon: there’s no way any member of my family could be that deadbeat
@Tom Phelan: haha, fair enough
Why was he hidden? Was he ugly??
@WJH: How do you know it was a “he”?
@Tricia Golden: Does it really matter??? Seriously???
Six of us in a J.C.B. Five of us squeezed round the driver. All was fine until we went over a bump and someone fell on the back acter (spelling?) control.. And 10 in a Volkswagon Variant, an estate car from the 1970s also known as a “deviant.” Two in front, four in back seat, one on the floor (it was rear engined so no transmission tunnel,) and three in the estate part.
Who’s there ??
Dad?
Why is the photo reversed ?
The car is pulled in on the left on the way out of Limerick on the ‘dark road’, sorry Dock road.
No one – they’re never there when you need them !
Knock Knock !
A Garda with a sense of humor ‘ trunk call ‘ . Who would have thought ?
@Mary Mc Carthy: They often crack jokes on Twitter, what of it? Isn’t it an odder thing to do, putting a passenger in the boot?
Knock Knock !
Ok waiting fir the mini driver. Any minute now…
Turns out
It was 15
AND they were women
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