Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In recent days, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a damning report on water quality in respect of five beaches in north and south Dublin which failed to meet minimum EU water quality standards. The agency says five more beaches, all in north County Dublin, are at risk.

In a region with hundreds of thousands of families and children, we are coming into summer and famous beaches such as the north beach in Rush, Merrion Strand and Sandymount Strand and others are at risk of becoming permanently closed if they continue to fail to meet EU water quality requirements. What does the Government propose to do about this? It is a disaster for the city but it is a particular disaster for the hundreds of thousands of children in the Dublin area who rely on beaches for recreational use, for sport and other activity in the summer but will now be barred from those beaches.

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