E coli testing and treatment in swimming waters around Dublin should be carried out all year round.
That's according to Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney, who said this is necessary due to the surge in popularity of sea swimming.
Dollymount Strand is one of several places where people like to go for a dip in the sea.
While the water is treated for E coli, this only happens in the summer months.
Councillor Cooney told Moncrieff sea swimming found an impetus during the pandemic.
"It became really, really popular when swimming pools closed down and sports centres closed down [during COVID].
"People started to look at sea swimming and they just kept it up.
"Now on any day you've got like thousands of people...so it became something they've obviously been contacted a lot about.
"So they've set up this expert group - they requested Uisce Éireann to do the ultra violet treatment - which they did after the bathing season finished in September 2021.
"They did it up to December, and that was just a pilot, and they haven't done it since.
"Here we are now looking at the end of the bathing season in 2022 until March 2023".
'E coli is easy to treat'
Councillor Cooney said as the numbers grow, so should the testing.
"There was a small minority of people that would have swam all year round," she said.
"Now that the numbers are much bigger, we should be looking at having this treatment all year round.
"People have got sick stomachs, tummy bugs, gastroenteritis.
"We're swimming in it, it's our leisure activity... but marine life lives there all the time.
"E coli is easy to treat in terms of the ultraviolet treatment, they're saying that naturally the sunlight will do that in the summer.
"That's actually arguably saying we actually need more of it in the winter, because that's when we don't have as much sunlight".
EU Bathing Directive
Councillor Cooney said the bathing season itself should be expanded.
"Really what we need to do is we need to be realistic about the bathing season and extend it out," she said.
"They only have to [test for E-Coli] under the EU Bathing Directive during the bathing season.
"Our bathing season is from May to September, so out of that they don't.
"They could do it on a voluntary basis, and they did it in 2021.
"It was an expert group that was set up by the Minister to look into the bathing water quality," she added.
