The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Beaches hit by bad behaviour
LENGTHY CLEAN-UP AT BALLINSKELLIGS BEACH AFTER LARGE SATURDAY-NIGHT PARTY
MANAGEMENT at Kerry County Council have admitted that there has been a substantial increase in anti-social behaviour on Kerry beaches that must be addressed – with a particularly shocking example occurring on Ballinskelligs Beach over the weekend.
A substantial clean-up operation had to take place at the beach on Sunday after a group of around 70 people gathered at the location on Saturday night for a party. The incident is especially worrying for the locality given that it’s one of the few beaches in the county with both Blue Flag and Green Flag status.
“We have a local Tidy Towns committee, and they went down there in the morning [Sunday] and saw all the glass and broken bottles,” said local man David Walsh. “It was frightening. I got a trailer then, and we filled it full of bottles and cans.
“The council came for all the bottles on Monday morning. It’s happened a few times, but nothing of the content of this one. There’s been a bit extra since the lock-down.
“We see nothing wrong with people having parties at the beach, but there were bottles thrown against a wall, thrown into the fire, there were crates of timber, nails left over, and it was all left in the sand.”
Another source, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed that around 60 to 70 people attended the party on Saturday night, an escalation on previous parties.
“It’s been happening regularly with the last couple of weeks, gatherings of 10 to 20 people, and most of them were sensible and took their stuff home with them,” they said. “On Saturday, it got out of hand. There were 60 to 70 there, and I think very, very few of them were from Ballinskelligs itself. They were from surrounding areas.
“I’d say parents are dropping them off and then returning to collect them at two or three in the morning. It seems to be the place to go at the moment. We have no problem with beach parties provided they cleaned up and took their stuff away with them. The one the other night got out of hand, it got messy.”
Kerry County Council Manager John Breen, meanwhile, said discussions must take place on what can be done to address anti-social behaviour in sand dunes as well as increased illegal gorse fires on beaches around the county.
His comments come after Cllr Deirdre Ferris called for secondary car parks and unsupervised car parks at local beaches in the county be closed as a measure to protect beaches. She said such car parks were the venue for late-night parties that led to anti-social behaviour. Her call came following devastation at Banna last week, during which sand dunes were burned, with rubbish dumped at the scenic beach.
Such scenes have become familiar at a number of beaches in the county in recent weeks. Places such as Ballybuion, Fenit and Castlegregory have also been affected.
“Four acres of sand dunes were burned last week in Banna... The loss of sand dunes could mean that such areas are de-listed as Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)... We run the risk of losing that status unless we take measures. We need to close the car parks to stop late-night parties,” said Cllr Ferris.
She put a motion before this month’s Kerry County Council meeting calling for beach car parks to be closed.
However, council officials said this suggestion would not address the issue and could lead to the loss of Blue
Flag status on beaches, as car parks are amongst the services required for this status.
They further stated, in response to the motion, that the closure of the car parks could lead to uncontrolled parking.
Management, however, said they were aware of anti-social behaviour on beaches. Cllr Ferris said the anti-social behaviour is linked to illegal camping and is occurring across the county.