The thousands among us who are planning a weekend trip to the beach - if the weather holds - will have been well pleased by yesterday's report from the European Commission on bathing-water standards. It may be that overall standards have declined marginally, but the overall picture remains positive. Water standards at over 83 per cent of the beaches surveyed are described as `good' by the Commission while over 96 per cent comfortably meet the Commission's minimum standards. This is no room for complacency; but it remains the case that Ireland enjoys not just a plethora of spectacular beaches but hundreds where the standard of bathing water is excellent. All of us who visit a beach this weekend will spare a thought for the teenage victims of the Strandhill drownings. The three, all of them non-swimmers, had been wading in waist-deep water before being carried out to sea. Strandhill, which is well-known for the prevalence of riptides, has been declared unsafe for swimming by the Irish Water Safety Association. Three years ago, insurers told Sligo County Council that it would no longer indemnify lifeguards at Strandhill because of the dangerous nature of the beach.
The National Safety Council (NSC) is now conducting an inquiry for the Minister responsible, Mr Bobby Molloy, into the circumstances surrounding the Strandhill tragedy. There is much to ponder. Strandhill beach is well served with signs warning of the dangers of bathing but these are routinely ignored, especially by visitors to the area. In making the case for a lifeguard service, locals say that some 20 people have been rescued from the sea at Strandhill in the last three years. But the issue is not clear-cut: there is some merit in the case advanced by the NSC that the provision of lifeguards on beaches regarded as unsafe would be contradictory: it would intimate that the beach is safe for bathing. This is a complex question for which there is no easy solution. But, given the very real threat to public safety, the Government must speedily formulate a coherent policy for beaches which are deemed unsafe. It might also publish a national list of such beaches and alert local schools and colleges in the relevant areas. The Government has one other important task. It should earmark adequate funds for the provision of public swimming pools and, at last, give water safety the kind of priority it deserves. All other EU states regard swimming skills as an integral part of physical education; this island nation should be no different.