The Department of the Marine and Natural Resources has defended its recently completed and controversial coastal protection scheme on the seafront at Bray, Co Wicklow.
However, a Green Party councillor for Wicklow, Ms Deirdre de Burca, says the beach has been destroyed and the esplanade is now a "virtual wasteland". She called for a more balanced approach to coastal protection, with greater consultation with local communities.
The Bray scheme posed a risk to public safety, Ms de Burca claimed, while Mr Pat d'Arcy, spokesman for Bray Beachwatch, said that as a swimmer and diver he also believed it was very hazardous. The £3.5 million scheme was designed to provide protection from storms which have damaged the sea wall at Bray and caused flooding in nearby homes and businesses.
It was one of two options presented to Bray Urban District Council (UDC) by Department of the Marine engineers, and called for extraction of 250,000 tonnes of shingle from the Codling Bank, a move which caused concern among east coast fishermen over the impact on fish spawning grounds.
Two years ago, in response to local concerns about the scheme, the minister for the marine, Dr Woods, asked engineers in his Department to consider six plans, which were assessed by a British company.
It endorsed the original plan proposed by the minister's engineers. Bray Beachwatch commissioned its own plan, drawn up with consultants Kirk McClure Morton of Belfast, but this was rejected by the UDC.
Mr d'Arcy said the 1:7 gradient of the shingle had created a shelf which was dangerous for swimmers, and chunks of material were already being washed away in south-easterly and easterly winds. The finished scheme was unsightly, with no symmetry between the sea and the promenade.
Cllr de Burca said a heavyhanded engineering approach to coastal protection did not always strike the balance between protection and preservation of an amenity, and there was "public outrage" about the final appearance of the project.
She has called for an assessment of the protection schemes to be carried out in Co Wicklow and other parts of the coastline as part of a £10 million coastal erosion plan involving 40 projects in 11 counties.
A spokesman for the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources said the scheme had been approved by the UDC and it would take a while for it to "bed in". The scheme had been deemed effective by its engineers, and the intervention of Dr Woods had been made on a personal basis.
The project had received "tremendous" feedback locally from people who did not want to see any more flooding in Bray, the spokesman said.
Last year an Australian coastal geomorphologist, Dr Eric Bird, warned that application of "hard engineering solutions" to coastal protection could impoverish this island's shoreline heritage.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Dr Bird, who lectures at the University of Melbourne, said the "soft engineering" option of beach nourishment could be just as effective as rock armouring, and had already proved successful in the US, Australia and parts of Europe. All 40 remedial projects on this coastline should be subject to environmental assessment, he said.
