New lifeguard training centre opens its doors in Tramore

A €500,000 National Lifeguard Training Centre will be officially opened today in the seaside resort of Tramore, following a unique collaboration between agencies.

The three-storey building on the town’s Lower Promenade is the culmination of a joint project by Irish Water Safety, the Tramore Surf Lifesaving Club and Waterford City and County Council.

With an ocean-themed design reflecting its seafront location, the centre will accommodate the local lifesaving club on a year-round basis, as well as the council’s beach lifeguards during the summer season.

Chairman of Tramore Surf Lifesaving Club Michael Cuddihy said the facility will be “a huge asset” not only to the club but the wider community.

“It will allow us cater for the ever-growing interest in surf lifesaving, a discipline in which Tramore has produced several international competitors,” Mr Cuddihy said. “It has been a long journey to deliver this centre but the quality of what has been created makes that all worthwhile.”

Local surfer Peter Breen at the new National Lifeguard Training Centre in Tramore, Co Waterford, the first centre of its kind in Ireland. Pictures: Patrick Browne

He referred to the various maritime tragedies off the coast in recent years and said that the new centre, along with more cautious use of the water by everyone, “will help make Tramore Bay safer for everyone as well as training lifesavers who will work across Ireland and overseas”.

The centre will be fully operational for the coming peak summer season, with beach lifeguards using an observation deck on the third floor to avail of panoramic views across the bay.

Chairwoman of the Waterford branch of Irish Water Safety and mayor of the metropolitan district of Waterford Lola O’Sullivan said all the volunteers should be “tremendously proud of the standard of facility now on offer”.

“As someone who’s lived in Tramore all my life and who spends as much time as I can around the water, I’m thrilled to see the National Lifeguard Training Centre open on the Lower Promenade,” she said.

The striking design “wouldn’t be out of place in Miami or Sydney,” said Ms O’Sullivan, and it will have an economic benefit to the area due to people from around Ireland visiting to undergo lifesaving training.