To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs whether plans exist to widen the rollout of real-time updates to alert bathers concerning water quality at additional sites across Northern Ireland.

DAERA currently provide funding for the EU’s INTERREG VA, SWIM. This project led by University College Dublin, Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful and Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute is a cross-border research programme developing a live bathing water quality prediction system. The system, currently available at 9 locations, 6 of which are Northern Ireland identified bathing waters, will enable short-term pollution events to be predicted. These predictions will be communicated to the general public via electronic beach signage, a smart-phone app, a website and social media.

This project is due for completion within the next year and DAERA has already secured funding and commenced work with Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute to investigate, model and if appropriate expand the live bathing water quality prediction system across Northern Ireland’s 26 identified bathing waters during the bathing season. It is envisaged that these projects on automated water quality predictions will better inform the public, alerting them to water quality issues.