The 2024 Green Flag Awards were announced today by An Taisce Environmental Education, acknowledging Ireland’s best public parks and gardens, with both Kilbarry Nature Park and Waterford Greenway achieving a Green Flag Award for 2024.
The 2024 Green Flag Awards celebrate the recognition of Ireland’s best parks and green spaces.
The international Green Flag Award was awarded to 120 parks, gardens, greenways and wildlife sanctuaries around the country today. The award acknowledges excellence in the management of those green spaces which are freely open to the public. Ireland clearly leads the way for other EU countries, with the largest quota out of a total of 174 EU Green Flag Award sites being located here in 2024.
Following today's announcement by An Taisce, Dawn Wallace, Senior Executive Officer with Waterford City and County Council’s Environment Department said, "These Green Flag Awards not only showcase the calibre of the wonderful natural amenities that we have in Waterford, but they also highlight the importance of shared public spaces as a place for people to relax and experience the wonder of nature on our doorstep.
"Waterford Greenway and Kilbarry Nature Park are exemplars of well-maintained public green spaces that not only improve biodiversity, but also contribute to the health and well-being of our communities."
Ms. Wallace also acknowledged the work of the Council team in securing these awards, saying, “Each member involved in maintaining these spaces takes pride in the appearance of our parks, open spaces and amenities, and these awards is testament to the great ongoing effort shown by them.”
Emlyn Cullen, Programme Manager for An Taisce Environmental Education Unit, running the Award in Ireland said, “The continued success of the Green Flag Award is due to the love staff members have for their green spaces and the hard work they put in to maintaining them. They do a phenomenal job every day making their parks and gardens beautiful, safe spaces for the public to enjoy.”
The Green Flag Award is the international quality benchmark for the public green space sector - now operating in 19 countries around the world. Running for over 25 years, the programme uses eight key criteria, with an emphasis on environmental management, for its assessment. All sites implement a management framework, and then undergo an annual inspection conducted by qualified judges.
Once again Ireland has secured its lead in high quality park amenities with more Green Flag Awards being secured by Irish parks and public gardens than by any country, other than the UK where the scheme originated in 1996.
