Search Results for 'Blue Flag beach'

Mayo County Council has welcomed the news that Cross Beach has retained its Green Coast award for 2022, bringing the total Green Coast awards for Mayo up to six for the coming season.

An Taisce has announced the International Blue Flag and Green Coast Award recipients for 2022, with the awards presented by Malcolm Noonan TD, Minister of State with responsibility for Heritage and Electoral Reform at a ceremony on Curracloe Beach in County Wexford on Friday last.

An Taisce announced the International Blue Flag and Green Coast Award recipients at a virtual ceremony this week.

THE elected members of Mayo County Council this week said they want to see no more losses of Blue Flag beaches next year after Ross beach in Killala lost it's Blue Flag when this years Blue Flags were announced earlier this year.

Ten beaches in Mayo retained their blue flag status this year, it was announced by An Taisce this week. However, due to the severe storm damage inflicted on the county in the post Christmas storms, two beaches have lost their blue flag. Both Mulranny and Bertra, which are very popular beaches, lost their blue flag status because of the storm damage. The ten beaches in Mayo that retained their blue flags were Dooega, Carrowmore, Clare Island, Ross (Killala), Golden Strand, Mullaghroe, Silverstrand (Dugort), Keel, Elly Bay and Keem.

Galway city and county has retained all of its five Blue Flags for this year as well as being awarded six Green Coast awards, five of which were retained from last year and a new one awarded to Trá gCaorach, Inis Oirr, for the first time.

Despite the recent destruction caused to the coastline in Mayo, there may be some relief for beaches which it was feared would lose their Blue Flag status this year because the damage caused would not be cleared up by the time they were inspected. An Taisce held its annual Blue Flag conference with local authorities this week to discuss the blue flag and green flag programs for this year.

Not all of the 12 Blue Flag beaches in the county are patrolled by a lifeguard which has caused concern among locals according to councillor Michael McNamara.

Mayo County Council is to engage with An Taisce and other agencies over the life guarding requirement for beaches to retain a blue flag. The issue of having lifeguard cover on all blue flag beaches during the bathing season has caused a problem in the county. A number of blue flag beaches in the county that did not get much use by the public during the bathing season still have to have lifeguard cover during this season to maintain blue flag status.

The Mayo County Council has reached an agreement with An Taisce that beaches at Dooega and on Clare Island which get relatively little use will have lifeguard cover at the weekends only. Martin Keating, acting director of services for Mayo County Council, was giving a report on the Blue Flags awarded to beaches in Mayo. He told the meeting that in order to keep a Blue Flag a beach must have an adequate number of life guards on duty, but with some beaches having very low usage there was a difficulty in life-guarding them. Therefore the council came to an agreement with An Taisce for this summer season to have lifeguards on duty at Dooega and Clare Island at weekends only, but both beaches would be monitored and re-assessed at the year end with the other beaches.