Kilkee beach is one of the safest in Ireland. There are no currents, no rip tides and no sudden drops in sand levels.That makes the job of a lifeguard not too difficult. And yet according to this week’s Clare Champion ((01.08.2019) a young boy was almost drowned. It was a child with special needs and he didn’t realisewhat was happening. The boy’s father called out and woman nearby who had been a lifeguaard pulled the child in. The boy had swallowed a lot of water so the distraught parents took him to the lifeguard station. To say the on duty lifeguards were unhelpful is an understatement. They claimed the child should not have been where he was if he couldn’t swim.The only advice they could give was to phone Shannondoc, an out of hours GP service and this was the middle of the day. The parents eventually phoned a local GP who called an ambulance and the child recovered in Limerick Hospital. What were the lifeguards doing (all three)? Sitting in their little hut with music playing and looking at their mobile phones, thats what. In the last couple of years a very narrow stri of the beacch is ‘designated’ for swimming. Who decides on the size of the strip or if there should be a designated area at all on such a safe beach? What was wrong with the old ssytem where one lifeguaard patrolled the shore line and another one in the station kept lookout with binoculars and alerted the person on the shoreline of any apparent incidents. Is there any supervision of these young people and the important role they have to play in sea safety? Clare Co Council has questions to answer.