Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Out of the Members present, I was probably raised closest to Dublin Bay. The contents of the bay used to come into my room every winter when I lived in Sandymount, before the promenade was built. The sea would come over the wall and bring with it the contents of half of the beach, across the road and into the downstairs bedroom. I have great memories of Sandymount strand in particular, the bay in general, and the amenity it was for us as young kids. For most of my young life I did not wear shoes. We would wake up in the morning and go straight across the road to the beach, come summer, winter or whatever. We gathered all the driftwood from the beach to heat the house. I do not know what our neighbours in Sandymount thought of us going about with a trolley collecting driftwood. The bay was not as polluted then, despite the fact that huge mounds of the city dump, which was in Ringsend at the time, fed into it. It was kept closed, but every now and again we found the contents of the city dump on our doorstep because they would end up in the water in a big storm or whatever. We did not have the algae that now stinks the place out for many weeks during the summer. Sometimes there was seaweed rotting, but never to the degree that there was a foul odour in the air on an ongoing basis.

As Deputy Andrews mentioned, that is to do with the waste treatment plant. It has to be; there is nothing else feeding into that water at that level on a continuous basis. When we were younger, we could dig down into the sand and it was not black. Then, for years, it was black under the surface. That was again the contribution of wastewater going into the system. It was in some ways a time of innocence. I do not know what the pollution levels were in the water when I was growing up. It did not do me any harm but the pollution levels now are much worse and much more dangerous because of the pollutants in existence.

There is much more we could do. Any other capital city with as much of a natural habitat on its doorstep and with as much of an amenity would do more. When we think about it, we are looking for sporting grounds and so forth but it is there on our doorstep. It was on my doorstep but it is on anybody's doorstep because Dublin city is not that big. We could do much more in terms of water sports. I am not looking for jet skis up and down the bay. They could be part of it but in a confined area.

When we were younger, I was involved at a very young age in the campaign to save Sandymount Strand when there were proposals to run a motorway across the strand. That was part of the eastern bypass, as it was then known. We were called backwards. We had swimming pools in Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire on the south side. As a young fellow I did not know that much about the north side. We also had the ruins of the Sandymount baths in which one could swim, just about. It was left sitting there and went to rack and ruin. There were swimming pools, however. We could utilise those through the city council or this new authority. We could have seaweed baths and the likes of that. We could do a lot for very little cost to enhance the beauty and usability of that natural resource.

I welcome this Bill; it has to happen. Regardless of whether it happens through this Bill, there must be greater co-ordination and investment in the natural resource we have. I thank Deputy Bacik for bringing it forward. Hopefully, it does not stop at Committee Stage. We must act quickly, in this Dáil or another Dáil, on the treatment of the wastewater and other pollution going into Dublin Bay. We have had far too many of what they call "brown trout" floating around in the water. That discourages people from swimming in our seas around Dublin. We need to get a lot more people back swimming. It is good for our health, the skin and everything else - if the water is clean.

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