Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response and acknowledge his attendance here tonight. I know this is not his area but the responsibility of the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, so I thank him for being here. I appreciate that the expert group is gathering survey data. I am a Deputy for the constituency from north Bray to Booterstown and I have been telling the authorities exactly what the issue is for two years. I have provided my own survey data, as has SOS Dublin Bay. It would be nice if the group engaged with us in this way. A motion was passed by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to introduce all-year round weekly testing. I thank the Minister of State for the information about Ringsend.

I wish to highlight a letter from Deputy Noonan to the SOS Dublin Bay group. With the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's permission, I will read it into the record, because I struggle to follow the logic of it. It states:

Department officials, together with the National Bathing Water Expert Group, are currently examining the most suitable options to provide for safe bathing water during the winter months, [the winter months are when the issues are particularly pronounced] and improve the dissemination of information around bathing water quality, both in the Dublin Bay area as well as in other locations throughout the country.

The science underpinning the monitoring and management plans during the current bathing season relates to summer conditions so the National Bathing Water Expert Group are considering this in their discussions and exploring the best options for winter conditions. For example, during summer, sunlight helps to kill harmful bacteria in water. In winter, sunlight is not as effective at killing bacteria and therefore natural background levels of bacteria in bathing waters are likely to be higher. There is also more rainfall during winter months resulting in more bacteria in bathing waters. Bathing waters are currently designated using bacterial bathing water test results over four consecutive summer bathing seasons. For example, if the bathing season is extended to the full year, the 12-month average concentration of bacteria used to determine the designation is likely to be higher than the average concentration over the current summer season. This may result in the current designation of Excellent, Good, and Sufficient bathing waters being downgraded.

The implication is that, because the winter sampling is being taken, it might identify that the water quality is not as good, resulting in our downgrading of the beach. If the water quality is not good, I would like my constituents to know that so they can choose not to swim in it on the day that it is so.

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