In an ongoing drive towards maintaining or improving bathing water standards, an invitation has gone out to members of the public to identify places where groups of people bathe.
The information, along with any comments about water quality or related matters, may be sent to the Water Quality Section of the Department of the Environment at Newtown Road, Wexford, or by e-mail to waterq@environ.ie The deadline date is October 1. The Department will then forward the information to local authorities around the country.
Under bathing water quality regulations and an EU directive, local authorities are obliged to identify all bathing waters before March 24 next, and annually thereafter.
At the September meeting of Tramore Town Council, Town Manager Brian White drew attention to the new legal requirements and appealed to the public to participate.
He emphasised that as far as Tramore was concerned, latest tests showed bathing water quality in the resort to be ‘excellent’.
Beach funding needed
On a related theme, Cllr Tom Raine called on the Ministers for the Environment and Tourism to provide ring-fenced funding for maintenance of the beach and beach front.
He said the County Council simply didn’t have the finance to maintain cleanliness on an ongoing basis and he felt it was a duty of central government to meet whatever shortfall existed. After all, the beach was Tramore’s biggest selling point as a tourist resort and it was vital for the local economy that visitor numbers didn’t drop.
