Testing needed to address 'rife' water quality at Blackrock beach

Louth County Council have been urged to begin testing the water quality at Priests’ Beach in Blackrock after it was described as “rife” by a Dundalk councillor.

Sinn Féín councillor Sionnain McCann raised concerns at the May meeting of Louth County Council describing it as a “massive issue”.

Cllr McCann said water testing is not carried out at the beach in Blackrock as it’s not classed as bathing water however, she said “there are people swimming on Priests’ Beach every single day”.

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The Dundalk councillor said people have not just began swimming there as a result of recent warm weather.

She questioned if the local authority was “digging its heads in the sand” by not testing the water.

“I mean it doesn’t look good that all these articles are coming out saying that the water if rife and it’s terrible yet we don’t have anything to come back to those people with because we’re not testing it.”

“I think we really need to look at it. It is our responsibility to ensure that our waters are clean and whether people do or don’t swim in it doesn’t matter. Maybe we should look at testing it because it is a massive issue,” she said.

David Hanratty, Director of Operations and Environment Delivery with Louth County Council said there is no evidence that the water at Priests’ Beach is polluted.

Mr Hanratty said it has been monitoring carried out the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that the status of the water quality was moderate.

According to the EPA water quality ranges from high to bad, with moderate sitting between good and poor.

Mr Hanratty noted that Priests’ Beach is not designated at bathing water and said it does not meet the criteria to be classed as such.

“It’s not a designated bathing water. We had a public consultation process, and we received over 90 submissions and responded to each of them.

It didn’t meet the criteria to be designated as bathing water. There’s various elements, it’s not just water quality. It’s infrastructure and amenities and safety as well,” he said.

However, Mr Hanratty said an annual programme allows the public to submit suggestions as to where they would like to see bathing areas which will run “later this year”.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.