A GROUP Transition Year students in Our Lady of Lourdes Secondary School are taking part in this year’s Young Social Innovators competition with their project, ‘Water Wise’.

The girls feel water safety is not as highly regarded as road safety and through their project they hope to bring some of the issues that they’ve identified to light.

They have researched legislation and have found that it is not mandatory for people of all ages to wear a life-jacket on board a pleasure craft.

They also discovered that a person does not need any training or licence in order to drive a boat and that training is only required by law for commercial vessels.

The girls are hoping to get people’s support to make their findings a national issue.

They also hope their project will help to reduce the numbers of casualties at sea due to lack of water safety and boat handling regulations.

To promote their project the students are organising a memorial day in New Ross as a tribute to those who lost their lives in Irish waters.

They have been organising fundraisers such as clothes and street collections and have designed stickers to put on boats and signs to be put on piers reminding people of important things to remember before getting into a boat.

Significantly, the girls have also got boat manufacturers on board with their safety campaign.

The hard working group has also designed education packs for primary schools in their local area and have arranged radio interviews with local stations.

The girls also plan to lobby politicians to put pressure on them to help bring about a change in legislation.