Apologies for inability to attend have been received from Deputies Desmond, Thornley and Fitzgerald and from Senators FitzGerald, Ryan and Yeats.
The main business today is the consideration of five draft reports and I propose to begin our consideration of them straight away starting with the Report on the Pollution of Sea Water and Fresh Water for Bathing. Members have the draft report before them so I propose to go through it reasonably quickly as it has been fairly fully considered at sub-committee level.
As Members can see the proposals are being put forward in pursuance of the aims of the Communities' programme of environment action, which was approved by the Council of Ministers on 22nd November, 1973. Paragraph 2 sets out the provisions of the proposed Directive. Paragraph 3 discusses the proposed Directive in the context of our situation. We refer to the fact that there are really only two places in the country where the level of pollution is above that set by the guidelines, that is, the Bull Wall and Killiney Bay.
There are interesting figures in paragraph 3 which say that even though we have about 3,500 miles of coastline we have only 342 miles of sandy beaches and of those only about 80 miles in all are used for bathing purposes. However, we underline the fact that these beaches are a very important national asset and that it is very important that they be protected.
In paragraph 4 we give our views. We refer to the fact that, in general, we accept the Directive and its purposes, but we are not entirely satisfied that the lack of monetary aid is appropriate in our situation. However, we have made a general recommendation that the situation in regard to pollution be kept under continuous observation and that any action which needs to be taken from time to time should be taken. We also refer to the fact that the Directive does not cover swimming pools. We feel that that omission from the Directive should be examined. We express our appreciation of the assistance which we have been afforded by Bord Fáilte and An Taisce. May I take it that the report is adopted?