Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I did not say we had the worst in Europe, I said we have among the worst in western Europe. Countries that do have busier beaches have a much better record on drownings than we do. Italy is better than us. Portugal is better than us. The North, as I said, is better than us. The UK is better than us. Belgium is better than us, and significantly so. This is because their lifeguards have proper equipment and they are employed for a much larger part of the year.

The lifeguard who explained all this to me said that part of the problem is that Water Safety Ireland, which the Minister mentioned, is responsible for giving advice and promoting water safety, but the lifeguards are employed by the local authorities, which do not want their budgets to be impacted. Therefore, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and there is a conflict of interest between the local authorities’ budgetary considerations and water safety. That needs to be addressed so we can improve the situation where more people in this country are travelling than in many of our neighbouring countries.

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