Cormac

Oh yeah, so I worked in a surf school back in 2021 and then I worked as a lifeguard for the Kent Council, Kenny Kent Council for three years and then I worked as a lifeguard as well for an operator of lifeguards at music festivals, so like Electric Picnic and Marley Park and Reading and

all that.

Yeah, I do agree with that.

I think Water Safety Ireland, I think as a whole, do quite a good job for their function in terms of kind of posting advice online and posting advice on social media about good

kind of swimming practice and I believe in primary schools they have um quite a good sort of program for educating on water safety maybe where it's slightly falling down is kind of transferring over to like second level uh education I mean the vast majority of kind of rescues are people that get into instances I've noted that people like an adolescent around 13 14 who are kind of not with their parents anymore but maybe don't have the kind of

frontal cortex yet developed to truly comprehend the risk that is involved with swimming.

Exactly, yeah.

So maybe kind of building on kind of the education that's done in primary school going forward into secondary level would be a positive addition to the curriculum, I think.

Yeah, well, I do know for the lifeguarding in Kilkenny, the vast majority or kind of the main pipeline towards that comes from, say, the Kilkenny Swim Club.

Yeah.

And people doing the Kilkenny, like, the water safety, the kind of surf life-saving as well.

A vast majority of people come for that also go into lifeguarding as well.

Even... Because swimming at that level, especially with the 5 a.m., is quite an intense sport.

So I think that's kind of what leads to a drop-off.

If you're up at 5 a.m.

every morning, it's quite intense.

But even...

a more fundamental kind of grasp of swimming.

You'd be surprised how many people consider themselves good swimmers, but in reality, the kind of volatile nature of open water does take additional skills that you wouldn't necessarily develop in a pool.

Even developing that nature and the skills associated with swimming in an open water in a less controlled environment might be