Galway City Council will continue to monitor a problem with wet wipes gathering at Claddagh Beach.
Several councillors highlighted the ongoing issue during Monday's online meeting with Mayor Mike Cubbard acknowledging the role that so many volunteers have played in cleaning the area on a consistent basis.
A Claddagh Beach Clean Up Volunteer Group was set up and Mayor Mike Cubbard hopes it will be addressed soon. "We have raised the Claddagh beach on a number of occasions right throughout the years," Mayor Cubbard said.
"I've asked a number of times where are these wet wipes coming from and who is at fault? I get frustrated because a lot of work has been done and you can tell that from the report," Mayor Cubbard stated about a presentation that was given on a recent EPA Water Quality report.
'A problem for some time'
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Carmel Kicoyne, senior planner with Galway City Council, confirmed it would work 'very closely' with Irish Water to find a solution. "We do have a problem with the beach at the Claddagh," Ms Kilcoyne said. "It is a problem that has been going on for some time. Our issue with this is that we don't have any information at this stage to what the full source of where those wipes are coming from.
"We absolutely appreciate what the volunteers are doing down there, we have also done three major clean-ups with our anti dumping funding of that particular beach," she continued. "We have done very, very extensive clean-ups of that beach. What you find with that beach is particularly after a storm the wipes get washed back up.
"We are tracking it, absolutely, and we are working very closely with our colleagues in Irish Water to try to get to the source of that problem."
