POPULAR BEACHES around the country are continuing to fail minimum EU water quality standards because of inadequate sewage infrastructure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said.

Nine of the State’s 131 beaches and lake shores which are designated by local authorities for bathing failed to meet minimum clean-water standards last year, showing no improvement in numbers since the previous year.

2008 had been the worst year for bathing water quality since records began in 1991. The same number of beaches failed the minimum test in 2009. Although the bathing areas found to be unclean last year are not all the same ones that failed the test the previous year, some are persistent failures.

Fingal in north Dublin had the worst-quality bathing water of any county in the State with three of the nine failing beaches located at Balbriggan front strand, Skerries south beach and Burrow Beach in Sutton. While Sutton and Skerries are new to this year’s list, Balbriggan appeared last year.

In Galway, Clifden has again made the failure list and in Westmeath Lilliput at Lough Ennel failed to meet the minimum standards again this year.

The remaining beaches which were deemed clean in 2008, but were last year found to have excessive amounts of faecal coliforms in their waters leading to their failing the minimum test, were Dunmore strand, Dunmore East, Co Waterford, Duncannon, Co Wexford, Killalla Ross beach, Co Mayo, and Youghal main beach, Co Cork.

Dunmore East had for several years been one of the poorest performers. It improved in 2008 to meet EU requirements but slipped again last year below the minimum standards.

Wet summer weather, which resulted in overflowing drains and excess run-off from land during heavy rains, particularly in agricultural areas, contributed to poor results in recent years, EPA programme manager Micheál Lehane said, but those which failed persistently had long-term sewage problems.

“Local authorities need to take action to ensure that bathing waters failing to comply with the EU minimum standards are improved. Adequate measures – including the provision of appropriate waste water treatment facilities – are required.”

Balbriggan and Clifden in particular needed upgraded sewage plans, Mr Lehane said. “In both these cases the bathing water quality test was failed because of waste water discharge.”

The Lough Ennel problem was due to a malfunctioning waste water treatment system connected to public toilets and this problem has now been addressed.

A further 14 bathing areas just met the minimum standards but failed to meet the higher “EU guide” values, which meant that faecal coliforms were present in the water but in a low enough volume to pass the test. This represents an improvement on last year when 20 failed to meet the guide values.

Seven local authorities achieved high water quality status in all their beaches, these were: Donegal County Council, Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Galway City Council, Kerry County Council, Louth County Council and Meath County Council.