merrion street

Mr Eoghan Murphy, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, presented the 2018 Blue Flag and Green Coast Awards at a ceremony at The Martello Hotel, Bray Co. Wicklow.  A total of 149 awards were presented for beaches and marinas at 144 sites around the country with 5 sites receiving both the Blue Flag and Green Coast Award.

Blue Flags

The Blue Flag is an international award for beach excellence and is operated in Ireland by An Taisce with support from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government.  The award is presented to beaches and marinas which have excellent water quality and which achieve high standards across a wide range of other criteria including environmental education, management of the environment, safety and other services. 

Operating in Ireland since 1987, a record high total of 90 Blue Flags has been awarded, 83 to beaches and 7 to marinas.  The Minister noted that

Today’s high number of awards reflects the great efforts made by local authorities, An Taisce, local coastal communities and other volunteers on the ground. It also reflects well on the work being done more widely within catchments to improve water quality.

Green Coasts

59 Green Coast Awards were presented for 2018.  The Green Coast Award is given to sites which have excellent water quality but which may be less developed and less populated than Blue Flag beaches.  An important aspect of the Green Coast Awards is the involvement of Coastcare Volunteer Groups. There are now over 400 Coast care groups established throughout the island. 

The Minister paid tribute to the work of these groups stating that

Achieving these awards is quite rightly a point of fierce local pride but it really engages communities and citizens with their natural environment.  Government is committed to supporting these programmes and to building on them to achieve positive changes in environmental behaviour. 

Beach Information

The Minister also highlighted the very useful and timely bathing water information now available to beach users on the linked websites – www.blueflagireland.org and www.beaches.ie – run by An Taisce and the Environmental Protection Agency respectively.