Bathing Water Quality

Water quality at identified bathing areas remains high with 97% meeting or exceeding the minimum required standard of Sufficient in 2022. Bathing waters are assessed and categorised into four main classifications based on the level of compliance with standards relating to E. coli and intestinal enterococci and using four years of data. These classifications are Excellent, Good, Sufficient and Poor. More than three quarters of all identified bathing waters (79%) were classified as Excellent in 2022 and an additional 13% of bathing areas were classified as Good. Three bathing waters were classified as Poor in 2022. Management measures are required to bring all Poor bathing waters up to at least Sufficient status.

Find out more about bathing water quality on the EPA's BEACHES website and in the 2022 Bathing Water Quality in Ireland report.

  • Excellent Water Quality
  • Good Water Quality
  • Sufficient Water Quality – compliant with minimum required EU standard
  • Poor Water Quality – not compliant with minimum required EU standard
  • New - identified bathing waters where classification is not yet possible as the minimum number of samples (16) have not yet been taken since identification
  • Changes - improvement in quality has occurred due to management measures but classification is not yet possible as the minimum number of samples (16) have not yet been taken since the changes occurred

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