THE NUMBER of Irish beaches which fail to meet minimum EU water quality standards is more than double that of Spanish and British beaches.
According to a European Commission survey of Atlantic coastal beaches, Ireland has the highest rate of failure, with almost 7 per cent of beaches failing to meet the minimum “mandatory” standard.
Nine of the State’s 131 beaches and lake shores, which are designated by local authorities for bathing, failed to meet minimum clean-water standards.
Fingal in north Dublin had the worst quality bathing water of anywhere in the State, with three of the nine failing beaches located at Balbriggan front strand, Skerries south beach and Burrow Beach in Sutton.
In Galway, Clifden again made the failure list, while Dunmore strand in Co Waterford, Killala Ross beach in Co Mayo and Youghal main beach in Co Cork also failed the minimum standard test.
In total, about 6.6 per cent of Ireland’s beaches failed the standard, compared to 2 per cent in Spain, 3 per cent in the UK and 4 per cent in France.
Greece scored the highest marks, with 99.8 per cent of the country’s beaches reaching the ideal standard, followed by Cyprus at 99.1 per cent.
European commissioner for the environment Janez Potocnik said legislation had significantly improved the quality of Europe’s bathing waters over the last 10 years, but warned against complacency.
“Despite our decade-long track record of high quality, we need to keep up the effort constantly to both improve and maintain what we have achieved.”
Prof Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the European Environment Agency, added: “Further improvement to Europe’s bathing water quality requires citizen involvement.
“This means, first and foremost, finding out and understanding the current state of our environment and then demanding cleaner water from relevant authorities,” she said.