Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): The SR will be laid before the Assembly under the negative resolution procedure. Subject to Executive approval, it is anticipated that it will come into operation on 1 April 2025, which is only a number of weeks away.

I welcome the DAERA officials who are here to brief us on the SL1: Claire Vincent, deputy director of the marine and fisheries division; Claire Young, principal scientific officer; and Brendan O'Kane, deputy principal. Thank you so much for attending the Committee. I open the floor to you for your briefing.

Ms Claire Vincent (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Thank you very much, Chair. On your comments about the time frame for the SR, it only has to be in place before the start of the bathing season, so there is more time; it has to be in place for 1 June. Therefore, we have a number of weeks for deliberation, and we recognise the importance of that.

I will ask Claire Young to make the opening remarks, after which Brendan will talk a little bit about the review. Brendan is new to this work area and was not the lead officer on it. He has been reading into it, but I may have to pick up some of your questioning.

Ms Claire Young (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Good morning. Northern Ireland's bathing waters are protected by the Quality of Bathing Water Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008, which were last amended in 2018, when three sites were added. The monitoring of bathing water quality is important, not only for bathers' public health but as an indication of the overall health of our waters.

Northern Ireland currently has 26 identified bathing waters. An identified bathing water is one that is listed in schedule 1 of the regulations, which requires the Department to comply with the provisions of the regulations for those waters. The Department decided not to review the existing 26 bathing waters as they are well established, frequently used and have recognised bathing water operators in place. The Department is aware of the marked increase in interest in open-water swimming over the past few years. A bathing water review was undertaken in 2022-23. The review sought nominations for new sites where large numbers of people bathe and examined the length of the bathing season, given the growing trend for year-round bathing. The regulations currently define the bathing water season in Northern Ireland as 1 June to 15 September. The bathing water review, published in June 2023, concluded that seven new bathing waters should be formally identified in legislation. There is significant interest in the topic of bathing waters, and there has been media coverage on the number of sites and wider issues such as the length of the bathing season.

The Department therefore intends to amend schedule 1 of the Quality of Bathing Water Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008 to increase the number of bathing waters identified under the regulations from 26 to 33. The seven new sites, along with their bathing water operators, are: Brompton Bay in Bangor and Donaghadee, which are under Ards and North Down Borough Council; Cushendall, which is under Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council; Drains Bay and Portmuck, which are under Mid and East Antrim Borough Council; Rea's Wood, which is under Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council; and Warrenpoint, which is under Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. Those sites have been monitored as candidate sites for two full bathing seasons in 2023 and 2024.

A statutory rule is required to amend schedule 1 and increase the number of bathing waters identified under the regulations. The Department proposes to make the statutory rule under powers conferred on it by section 14 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. The amending regulations will be subject to negative resolution. Previous amendments were made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which transposed the 2006 revised EU bathing water directive. The regulations provide the statutory system for monitoring classification and provision of information to the public on potential risks to human health. They also have a specific focus on the protection of public health and are complementary to the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2017, which provide an overarching framework for monitoring and management of the marine environment.

Positive responses to the seven newly identified sites have been received from the Infrastructure Minister and the Minister of Health. The Minister for Infrastructure has stated her support for the new bathing waters and committed to helping to deliver improvements in water quality across Northern Ireland. However, she also raised the point that the formal identification of some of the candidate sites may still require significant capital investment to achieve the desired good standard, and that that will likely cover multiple price control periods. She has committed to continuing to work closely with the Department and NI Water to secure adequate and sustainable funding. The Minister of Health provided his support for identification of the seven new bathing waters and emphasised that regulations provide important public health protection to bathers through the classification system and provision of information. He also supports the review to extend the bathing water season so that it reflects public usage as a means of protecting public health.

A commitment has been made in the environmental improvement plan (EIP) to conduct a full bathing water review by the end of 2026. My colleague Brendan O'Kane will provide some background information on the consultation exercise behind the seven new sites.

Mr Brendan O'Kane (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Good morning. A public consultation was undertaken in the spring of 2022, as part of the 2022-23 bathing water review. It received 172 responses, with 352 nominations for 101 candidate bathing water sites, including inland water sites. It is interesting to note, for comparative purposes, that only four candidate sites were requested in the 2017 review. The 2022-23 bathing water review considered new candidate bathing sites and the statutory length of the bathing season. That reflects the increase in interest in open-water swimming and associated concerns about water quality and risk to public health.

The Department's criteria for the identification of bathing waters were established in the consultation on the 2006 review and have since been used in the 2006, 2011 and 2017 reviews. The criteria, which are closely linked to the directive's requirements, are:

The 20 most nominated sites from the spring 2022 consultation were surveyed over the 2022 bathing season, and the criteria were initially met at 10 sites. However, councils withdrew their support as the potential bathing water operator at three of those sites — Castlewellan, Gortin Lake and Muckross — which resulted in the seven sites before the Committee today. As Claire Young mentioned, those sites have now been monitored as candidate sites for two full bathing seasons in 2023 and 2024. Preliminary classifications for those sites, based on two years of data rather than the recommended four years, are provided in annex 1 of your papers, along with a map. The review report of the bathing water consultation is at annex 2, and it was published on the web in June 2023. The draft regulations — the Quality of Bathing Water (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025 — are provided at annex 3.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you very much for your presentation. I have only chaired the Committee since October, but we have touched on the issue of bathing water a number of times. There is interest in it among the Committee. Your briefing and papers captured that interest; that the response to the consultation was significant, compared with previous consultation responses; and that there is a greater interest in open-water swimming from cold-water dippers.

I note that part of the assessment is the number of people who dip: 45 on a single occasion. What is the time frame for that? Is it in one instance on one day or in one week, at any point in a year? Was any thought given to smaller numbers of more regular use, as opposed to the larger number in a shorter time period? Does that make sense?

Ms Vincent: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Sometimes the questions are a bit convoluted.

Ms Vincent: Those criteria were established during the 2006 consultation. They were based on Scottish figures, because, clearly, the south coast of England has a much larger number of bathers than Northern Ireland, and that was particularly the case back in 2006. We worked with Scotland at that time and put it out for consultation. To answer your question directly: it is 45 users on a single occasion. We asked for evidence from the people who nominated but also did survey work to provide quality assurance for the Department. From the last consultation, we recognise that there is a need to relook at that. The environmental improvement programme states that another review of bathing waters will be done by the end of 2026. That was put into the EIP to look specifically at the length of the bathing season, but we have since had an Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) report on implementing bathing waters, which also raised the issue and said, "You might want to look at that".

In the marine and fisheries division, we have done a lot of co-design work in our consultations, and that is the approach that we will take for the next review. We will take on board people's comments, like your point on, "What about little and often?" Would that give a fairer idea of the places where people are swimming?

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): It is important. The big spike in interest is because people have seen the benefit of cold-water swimming or dipping to their mental health. The danger — my fear — is that, if people are regularly dipping in and exposed to water that is not cold enough to give that experience and not sufficiently clean or in the condition that they think that it is, that could have long-term health implications. Has any thought been given to providing wider guidance to the public in areas outside those that are subject to licensing and regulation?

Ms Vincent: In connection with the blue-green algae in Lough Neagh and further afield, we recognised during 2023 that communication needed to be improved, and that is an ongoing area of work. We worked in a multi-agency group on the blue-green algae issue. The key message was, "If in doubt, stay out. If there is algal scum, stay out".

On the presence of bacteria and coliform, the Minister gets Assembly questions about suitable watercourses. There was a question recently about swimming in Connswater river. We are very clear that, for urban watercourses, it is a no. We will need to pick that up with councils, because they lead on signage, which is a whole art in itself. They tell us that, the more signs that they put up, the less people read them. At our 26 sites — soon to be 33, subject to your views of course — we are getting better coverage, and there is certainly more awareness. We get more questions about suitable watercourses, and we try to give general advice on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): You mentioned Lough Neagh, which I want to move on to. One of the candidates, in terms of the scores on the doors, came back as "poor". Is that linked to Lough Neagh? From the map, it certainly looks as though that may be indicative of a link to Lough Neagh, given its geographical proximity to Rea's Wood?

Ms Vincent: Rea's Wood, Antrim, is failing on the coliform counts. We had to advise the council to put up advice against bathing for most of last year's bathing season. That went up on 16 July, and it was not removed until October, because of the thick green algae scum. It was failing on two bases. The thing about coliform counts is that, under the Bathing Water Regulations, you need four years of monitoring to get a really robust coliform result. It may look better, but there clearly are coliform issues there. That is why the posters have to go up. We have been working on text alerts and pushing it through social media. We are working to try to get the message out. The Antrim Chilli Dippers are well aware of the water quality situation there.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): We will send our point man in Antrim, John Blair, up there in his Speedos to join them some day in order to test it out.

The first question, I think, in the consultation is really interesting, and I have not teased out exactly where you are going to go with it. The testing only runs from June to September, but 81% of respondents want it year-round, which I get. My friends certainly dip all year round. Where is the Department going in that space? Is it moving to a year-round testing regime?

Ms Young: We recognise that the sites are used year-round and there is a requirement there. We have out-of-season sampling, and it is published on our website. That is done monthly, and it will, I hope, help guide the discussions that come through our review process about what sites are suitable for year-round bathing. As I said, that is published already on the website for anybody who wants to get a more complete picture of what is happening at their favourite bathing water spot.

Ms Vincent: The previous Minister requested that we gather more information to look at the implications of that. Minister Poots, before he left office, gave that instruction. We now have two full years of out-of-season monitoring, albeit at a not-as-frequent level. There are challenges with monitoring, which involves going in to collect samples, out of season, because the sea conditions can be serious then compared with the summer months. Therefore, there is lots to be considered. However, we recognise that people are dipping year-round, and we want to give better advice. By the time that we do the next review, we will have three years' worth of data, which will form part of that process.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): This short question has occurred to me: is there not technology to alleviate that problem? Do we not have something that could literally sit in the water and send results of constant testing, through GPS, Bluetooth or whatever? Can we not get an in-the-moment reading, rather than sending people out in their waders?

Ms Young: The monitoring that we do is in the regulations. It is a United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) quality-assured process of microbiological testing. We also have Swim NI, which is a predictive service, at six sites. That was an EU-funded project with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) and Dublin City University (DCU). It provides a predictive service over the course of the bathing season. It takes into account rainfall and other factors to provide information and let people make the best possible choice of where to bathe. Other new technologies are coming online. We are looking at them, but we follow the regulations and the gold-level sampling standard that allows us to compare over the season and over the years.

Mr Blair: On the subject of visiting the site, I never say never. [Laughter.]

Claire, Claire and Brendan, thank you very much for the presentation. This is a good news story. The number of waters applied for in the consultation responses clearly signifies that an increased number of people are participating in outdoor and nature-based activities.

Some of my questions have been covered by what the Chair asked about Rea's Wood, but I will just extend that a bit further. It became clear last year that the Lough Neagh situation was also having an impact on some of our coastal waters, particularly on the north coast. Is that considered when other waters are looked at?

I will ask my second question now as well. You mentioned that progress will be dependent on available resources. Is there any sign that those resources will be available? Are the resources that you work with now better than they were in times of previous analysis, or are they still the same and you are, therefore, in need of increased resources?

Ms Vincent: Yes, the blue-green algae has impacted on the north coast. We saw that in 2023 and 2024. The messaging was really tricky, because we had never dealt with anything like that before. After 2023, we got together and formed an inter-agency group, which I chaired, to develop a blue-green algae monitoring protocol. That is a tiered system to help us with the question of, "What public messaging do we need to give?". We operate that with all the agencies involved. We spoke to our bathing water operators: the primary ones involved in it this year were Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council; Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council; and the National Trust. We use that format as a guide for when to alert the public of blue-green algae scums. That is combined with the monitoring that we do.

Monitoring happened in Lough Neagh. Under the protocol, there is a tiered system. The lowest level is a visual inspection every couple of weeks. Once blue-green algae, or any evidence of it, is found, monitoring increases. The monitoring at Rea's Wood went on fortnightly from March last year. There was also monitoring of the lower Bann and the bathing waters, which are visually assessed throughout the bathing season. During the bathing season, somebody visited those at least once a week.

You will remember that, in 2023, there was advice against bathing at our north coast sites. That was a very precautionary approach, but scums were being spotted on the beach. As a result of our monitoring, we did not have to do that in 2024. We knew from the bio-volume work and cyanotoxin testing that we were doing that levels were low and did not pose a risk. That protocol is applicable to the whole of Northern Ireland. I mentioned the area where it came in in earnest, but other coastal water sites are visually monitored and samples are collected for bacterial analysis every week.

On resourcing, last year, we really struggled with resourcing in teams due to a retirement. I am really pleased to say that Brendan is now in place as our policy lead, as I have mentioned already. We also had folk leaving the team. You know about the resourcing issues. Lough Neagh is a priority for resourcing, so we were successful in bidding for funds for new team members. We are in a much better place for the 2025 season than we were for the 2024 season. We will need it all, because it is really high profile and there is a lot of communication on it, but we are definitely in a better place.

Mr Blair: OK. For clarification: is your team leading on the Lough Neagh action plan as well, or is there a separate subteam for that?

Ms Vincent: We are leading on action 37, which is the inter-agency protocol, because a tier-1 response is needed on the bathing water side. We are leading on that as part of a wider team. We are not part of a separate team in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), but we work really closely with NIEA.

Mr Blair: I did not frame that brilliantly, but that is a sign that there is joined-up working.

Ms Vincent: Yes, absolutely. There is really close working. That is what the protocol is all about: alerting each other. The gold standard will be the Lough Neagh data platform, which is another action in the action plan. We are not there yet, but, eventually, that will make data sharing really easy. On that inter-agency group, advice is provided by the Public Health Agency, the Food Standards Agency, NIEA, the Department and — who else?

Ms Young: AFBI.

Ms Vincent: AFBI, of course. There is good working and sharing of results. Northern Ireland Water is also there to monitor raw water. We all monitor for different reasons. We monitor bathing water. NIEA does the general Lough Neagh monitoring. AFBI does the same. NI Water does the raw water monitoring. We share data.

Mr Blair: OK. That is good news as well.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you very much for all the information so far. It has been really interesting. It is welcome news that additional bathing sites have been added. You mentioned criterion (c) established in the consultation, which is that:

Have you engaged with any council areas yet? What capacity or resources would be needed to take on that responsibility?

Ms Young: The bathing water operator role is defined in the regulations. Operators assume responsibility for the site and also have a communication role as the link to the public. Our key linkage is our Better Beaches forum. We bring all our bathing operators together in person once a year, and online on another occasion just before the bathing water season, to do updates and get feedback from them.

The bathing water operator role is usually undertaken by a council. The NIEA assumes it in Crawfordsburn, and the National Trust does it up on the north coast. We are happy to work with councils. We have put out guidance on the requirements of that role. Over the season, there is a close working relationship in our communications. We rely on the operators to interact with the public to get across the messaging on bathing waters.

Ms Finnegan: Does that include cost, management and all those things?

Ms Young: Cost and management of the sites?

Ms Finnegan: Yes. If a council is going to take that on, obviously there will be costs involved in that.

Ms Vincent: Updating those signs weekly costs money. The latest review includes Rea's Wood, our first inland site. We contacted not only councils that have coastal sites but all of them over the past number of reviews. Some nearly got over the line, but, as Brendan mentioned, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council decided to step back over Gortin, to take just one example. I think that that is because of legal uncertainty about site ownership. Muckross is the same. As we start this new review, we will actively engage with those councils again to explain all that a wee bit more. There is a wee bit of reticence. There is, "Yeah, yeah, we're keen", and then, "We're not sure. It's a new area for us".

With everything that has happened in the past couple of years at Lough Neagh and with the public outcry, I think that we will get a different response this time. Even in 2022, maybe councils as potential bathing water operators felt, "Well, we're not being lobbied on it", but now I think that we will get better engagement from those councils. A few just said, "No. We don't want to be a bathing water operator". That was the case in a few areas.

Ms Finnegan: In south Armagh, amenity areas are well used and are important to the people who live there. Off the top of my head, there is Camlough lake, Lough Ross, and even small areas such as Kiltybane lake. If groups are using those amenities, how do we get them added to the list? Is there a way?

Mr O'Kane: There will be a full review of bathing waters next year. That will involve full engagement and will go out to consultation. That will be advertised via the various means — the press and so forth.

Ms Vincent: There is more interest in general. The three of us did a webinar last week with Swim Ulster, which asked us to talk about water quality. Awareness is definitely increasing. Last time around, we used citizen science, and we got nominations for Camlough lake and Lough Ross, but they did not meet the threshold. They might meet the threshold next time —

Ms Finnegan: Hopefully.

Ms Vincent: — as swimming groups become more active. Who knows? We have had discussions with Newry, Mourne and Down District Council about Camlough lake, because many events are held there. Watch this space.

Ms Finnegan: Good. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I have a former colleague from the Fire and Rescue Service who swims in Camlough lake all the time. [Inaudible.]

Ms Finnegan: It is really well used.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Yes. It is very well used.

Mr McAleer: I declare an interest as a director of Loughmacrory Community Development Association. We have a management agreement with 52-acre Lough Macrory, which the village takes its name from. The association receives a lot of requests for swimming, but, as a community association, we are very nervous about managing it. If a lake is designated a bathing area, how does that work for a managing authority with regard to health and safety? Would there need to be lifeguards? What does it mean if somewhere is designated a bathing site?

Ms Vincent: You would definitely have to provide signage. When a site is identified, the Department does the monitoring and passes the results each week to the bathing water operator, which, typically, is a council. It then has a statutory responsibility to provide and update the signage. If there is a pollution incident or blue-green algae, it is their responsibility to amend the signage weekly. It is quite a big undertaking for councils such as Ards and North Down or Causeway Coast and Glens. They have to commit to updating posters weekly, and, in cases of a pollution incident, to respond by putting advice on posters against bathing. We are always looking at how we can do that through IT, but, even with that and smartphones, the advice does not reach everybody that it needs to reach, so it is likely that there will still be posters on noticeboards for some years to come.

We also do a risk assessment on safe access and egress. In the most recent review, our staff conducted a risk assessment. We could not commit to identifying some popular bathing sites, because you had to walk on top of a wall to get to the beach. That is the sort of thing that we were seeing; there are those sorts of issues. There would need to be a commitment from a bathing water operator to ensure safety and safe access and egress; provide good signage; and have a willingness to update that. Getting those public health messages out is what is required to be part of our little family.

Mr T Buchanan: You say that the council has stepped back from operating Muckross and Gortin. Those two sites are used fairly frequently, and Gortin is used the whole year round. Any time that you are there, you will see somebody in the water. Have you identified who is actually operating those sites?

Ms Vincent: They have not been formally identified. Muckross has come up a few times: it came up in the 2011 review as well. My understanding is that there was an issue over the landownership — maybe a legal issue between the council and the landowner. I cannot be definitive on that, but it was something like that. I think that there might be "Swimming prohibited" signs at Gortin. That is one of the key issues. When we talked to the council about that, it could not resolve the issue in time to go ahead with the 2023 monitoring that we were doing. We can certainly engage with it again to alert it to a new review and tell it that we know that people are bathing there, and, if it has been trying to work through issues on landownership or whatever, there is time to get its ducks in a row.

Miss McIlveen: I have a wee question.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Just a wee one. That is because it is Brendan's first time. I am not going to be naughty, but Brendan has got off easy, Michelle, if you want to make him sweat a bit. [Laughter.]

Miss McIlveen: Did you have any reservations about putting Rea's Wood forward for classification, given that its classification is "poor"?

Ms Vincent: The way in which the regulations are written, at the minute, is that, if people are bathing in an area, you identify, and, if it is "poor" for five years in a row, you de-identify. That is because the emphasis is supposed to be on public health advice and getting the message out. If you have to de-identify, you put up a sign to say, "This area is not suitable for bathing". That has never happened in Northern Ireland. We have had a failure at the like of Ballyholme for two years, and then it has passed for two years, so, because it has passed, the discussion has been about how we improve bathing water quality there. There are some reservations, but that is how the regulations are written. The OEP has an opinion on whether that is the best way to do it, but, at the minute, we are still working from the EU-retained law, and its approach is that, if people are bathing, you need to monitor and then tell them if it is not suitable. We are probably on that journey. When we had only one year of data — back in 2023 — four of the sites came out as "poor", but that was on the basis of only 20 samples. However, you will see that, when you add in 40 samples, most of them came over the line apart from Rea's Wood. We will have to keep monitoring to see whether its cleanliness comes up and to look at the blue-green algae piece.

Miss McIlveen: Thank you for that.

Claire, in your opening comments, you mentioned the Infrastructure Minister's comments regarding the need for investment in certain sites. Was that just a general comment, or did she have specific concerns?

Ms Young: That was a general comment in response to the consultation.

Ms Vincent: DFI may have concerns about the implications for it of sites in urban areas not meeting "sufficient" or "good" status. If a site is really unsuitable, the process under the regs is to de-identify rather than continue. With de-identification, you put up a sign to say, "Water not suitable for bathing here". We have not been down that road before, so we will see how it works out and whether, now that we are out of the EU, the OEP has the chance to take a slightly different approach. It was because of our situation that the OEP did not go straight to identification two years ago. It liked that approach, with the idea of a candidate site. Something like that is run formally in Germany, I think. It monitors for a few years before deciding to identify. All that will be up for grabs in the next consultation, when we will have a public discussion about the best way to do this.

Miss McIlveen: That is helpful. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I have a short question. This has been a really interesting conversation as the questions have come up. Under the testing regime in and around coastal waters, for something to fail, how many times does it have to be tested? Does it fail on one test if that does not seem right?

Ms Vincent: We test 80 samples over a four-year period. You cannot tell until the end. We have two different things. If we have a high sample result of 1,250 faecal coliforms, for example, we will put out advice against bathing. That is one thing. With a high sample, we know that there is something going on, and we immediately work with NIEA to look at the reason for it. We also ask Northern Ireland Water, "Is anything strange happening at your assets?". However, you cannot tell from one, two or three high sample results in a season whether a site will fail overall on the classification, because that is based on four years' worth of data.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): It is not dynamic; that is fine. It is in the regulations, obviously, but it is not dynamic.

Ms Vincent: We talk to swimmers about that. All the information is on the website. We have sites that are really stable, with excellent water quality all the time, and are really good and robust even when it is raining: you will not have a problem. Other sites are vulnerable, and the posters will help folks who use them to see that and say, "Right, after that wet weather event, there was a high result, and that was investigated". Our advice to bathers is this: get to know your sites. We are fortunate in Northern Ireland that, if a site is of poor quality or more vulnerable, there is usually a good site within a short distance. Bathing water profiles show where all the vulnerable spots are; all that information is on the website. Most bathers know their sites and when they are vulnerable. They know what they are looking at, and we try to help them with that.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): One of the benefits of having such a rainy climate might be that it helps to rinse the stuff out of a site more quickly.

Thank you, Claire, Claire and Brendan. We really appreciated that, and, as you can tell, there is a lot of interest in it on the Committee. We will definitely pay attention to the SR when it is made.

Ms Vincent: OK. Thank you very much indeed.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you so much.