Following the controversial beach bye-laws that were under consideration by the Galway County Council to prohibit all water activities other than swimming in beaches across the country, water sports enthusiast, Barra Nevin is calling for a national policy on zoning beaches.
Proposed drafts of the bye-laws were first reported at the beginning of November and were met with strong resistance. With some 1,000 submissions on last count regarding the controversial beach by laws, and some 5,000 signatures on an online petition, the county council extended the deadline for submissions by an extra two weeks to Friday, November 25.
With that deadline now looming, Nevin, a pharmacist from Roscam, member of Galway Bay Sailing Club and Galway Windsurfers, and the head of the ZoneGalwayBeaches campaign, has written to the Department of Local Government to intervene and to formulate national policy on zoning beaches. Unlike other Blue Flag beaches, where specific zoning has been put in place for swimmers, surfing, windsurfers and other forms of watersports, Galway’s beaches are not currently zoned.
Nevin says that zoning the county’s beaches would be paramount to ensuring the safety of Galway’s swimmers, while still allowing for outdoor watersports.
“The central problem surrounds the paragraph which states that other outdoor water sports participants cannot be in ‘close proximity’ to other swimmers and effectively would outlaw ‘outdoor water pursuits’ other than swimming in 24 beaches in County Galway from Loughrea, Portumna and all along the Wild Atlantic Way from Connemara and the Aran Islands.
“The only way around this is to zone beaches first, and it the the number one thing the council can do for safety.”
Nevin went on to say that an example of how to incorporate zoning into Galway’s beaches can be seen across the “sea to Britain”, where “there are clear guidelines centrally issued from the department to county councils outlining the broad consultative steps that must be taken before zoning or designating areas of beaches for water users.”
To make matters worse he says, “many of the outdoor water pursuit bodies are all-Ireland ones so we are totally out of step with Northern Ireland.”
To Nevin, the fact that Ireland “doesn’t have any guidelines”, regarding zoning has created major problems in Co Galway as beaches have never been zoned here and there is no policy for it.
He says, “In fact County Galway only has an unwritten policy on crudely blocking beaches instead of zoning, by accident or otherwise this is why the current proposed bye-laws are unworkable without reference to zoning.
“It is only a matter of time until other counties and jurisdictions face a similar crisis if they roll out bye-laws and never zoned before,”
In the interim he adds, “Galway County Council needs to consult with Water Safety Ireland and engage with representatives from water user organisations to develop local plans for zoning, as safety is paramount as it will take time for Government to formulate national guidelines.”
Nevin says that the discussion simply cannot wait any longer, “bye-laws can’t wait until then as safety is paramount and need to be passed.”
