Swimming Pools

I thank the Minister of State for being here. It is always helpful when the Minister with responsibility is in attendance. Nach bhfuil mé ceart?

I used to be.

Tá brón orm. Rinne mé dearmad faoi sin. In that case, I express my disappointment that the Minister with responsibility is not here, although I know the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, has a lot of knowledge in this area. Since long before my election to the Dáil, going back as far as my first election to Carrickmacross Town Council over 25 years ago, one of the issues I have consistently raised is the need for a swimming pool in Carrickmacross. In fact, the demand for a public swimming pool in the town goes back long before that. There is a local legend about a huge fundraising drive that was undertaken as far back as the 1970s and into the 1980s when local people came together to raise funds for a swimming pool that did not materialise. In the period that I have been involved in politics, we have been raising this matter locally. Unfortunately, for a long period of time, it is fair to say that the executive of Monaghan County Council was not really on board and there was not the necessary drive at that level to progress the matter. We are now thankfully in a situation where there is unanimity and a determination locally to deliver a swimming pool. Monaghan County Council has assigned a site. That is very welcome and is something I have been calling for many years. The council appointed a design team this week and is putting in place a steering committee to progress this project. The demand for a swimming pool has now been proven. All the local schools, sports organisations and the wider community support it. We have tangible evidence of this because, in conjunction with Swim Ireland, we have had a temporary swimming pool in the town since 2004. It was supposed to remain for a six-month period and is still there. In fact, the pop-up pool will remain in place until December and is only leaving because it requires significant repair works and there are rising operational costs. However, it has been booked out throughout the time it has been in place. That provides very clear, rock-solid proof that public swimming facilities are needed in Carrickmacross and that this would be a worthy investment. I now believe we have all of the building blocks in place for the delivery of a swimming pool in Carrickmacross. There is one crucial element missing, namely, the necessary central government funding. Will the Government provide a clear pathway for towns like Carrickmacross to access funds? I have been raising this matter in the House since 2020. I have pages of responses I have received in that time. We were told there was a review of the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF. We were told there had to be a national swimming strategy. All of those have been completed. What will be the route for towns like Carrickmacross to secure central government capital funding for the delivery of a swimming pool? Will that route be opened as speedily as possible so that we can deliver this infrastructure for the young people of Carrickmacross but for the wider community as well?

I thank the Deputy. Carrickmacross is a town I am very familiar with. Sport and physical activity are hugely important to our collective well-being. Swimming is one of the most important sports to ensure participation. Availability and ease of access to sports facilities, whether in a club setting, on public lands or in other amenity areas, drives participation. Planning for future facilities' needs, locations and types is a focus of the current sports action plan, which is supported by the work of Sport Ireland as a statutory consultee for local development plans and capital funds operated by the Department. There is real merit in the development of municipally backed shared sports facilities to make the best use of available funding. Therefore, I strongly encourage national governing bodies of sports and local authorities to collaborate on developing multisport facilities. That can include swimming. There are a number of examples around the country where local authorities have got together with national sports governing bodies and put in place multisport facilities. We only have to look at Castlebar and similar places. While this is a matter for Monaghan County Council, the Department has a number of funds, such as the community sport facilities fund and the large-scale sports infrastructure fund, that can be accessed to improve and develop swimming pools. The community sport facilities fund is open until February. Applications for swimming pools will be prioritised under that. In the context of a swimming pool, that is a smaller fund but there is also the LSSIF, which has allocated significant funding for swimming pools around the country where the local authorities have requested it. If I am correct, Monaghan County Council did not look for this funding previously. A previous local authority swimming pool grant was in place for 25 years. Lucan leisure campus was opened only recently, yet the grant for it was allocated in the early 2000s. Local authorities have a strong role to play to get these facilities over the line. We are looking at a future round of LSSIF but the current focus is on ensuring project delivery under the first two rounds of LSSIF. The Deputy mentioned the pop-up pool in Carrickmacross, which has been incredibly successful. When I was the Minister of State with responsibility for sport, I funded that. I also developed the national swimming strategy. This is very important. I know Carrickmacross very well and it would be an ideal location for a swimming pool. I certainly would support a swimming pool. My constituents would benefit enormously from one if one were there. I am certainly willing to work on that, and I know my colleagues in Monaghan, Councillor PJ O'Hanlon and Senator Robbie Gallagher, have been very supportive of this ambition as well.

I welcome that indication from the Minister of State that he will support this. I will be the first to acknowledge that Monaghan County Council was previously far too slow in moving on this area. We have an excellent swimming facility in Monaghan town, which completely washes its own face financially after the initial investment, and I believe the same would be the case in Carrickmacross. However, we had an executive that was reluctant and we had councillors, including some the Minister of State mentioned, who voted to sell off the land that is now earmarked. Thankfully, that did sale did not happen. I agree that we need unity in progressing this project. As the Minister of State knows, Carrickmacross is a growing town. There is a lot of very welcome housing development, of which we need much more. We also have a great record of community organisations, particularly sporting organisations. We have the Carrick Aces running track. The Carrick Rovers soccer team is moving into new facilities. The Carrickmacross Emmets GAA club is currently in the middle of a huge fundraising drive, Every Square Matters, to deliver new, state-of-the-art facilities on the Donaghmoyne Road. We have kickboxing, basketball and a myriad of other sporting organisations doing huge work. The missing piece that all of those sporting organisations would benefit from is a swimming pool. I believe Monaghan County Council is now in a different place, where there is unity of purpose and determination in the council executive. From the CEO down, the council is entirely in support of this proposal, to the point that it has earmarked land and appointed a design team. My appeal to the Minister of State is that when an application for funding is submitted, it is prioritised. This campaign goes back to the 1970s at a local level, although it did not have the support of the local authority. Now that the local authority is on board, we do not want to be waiting 30 years to go through bureaucracy and applications. We need prioritisation so that funding will be allocated and then delivered and we can provide these facilities for the people of growing towns like Carrickmacross.

When I was the Minister of State with responsibility of sport, I published our first ever national swimming strategy. That set out a vision to give everybody in the country an opportunity to swim. If there was a swimming pool in Carrickmacross, I would support it because my constituents around Meath Hill, Drumconrath, Nobber and the Kingscourt area would benefit hugely from it. We knew from that strategy that we did not have enough swimming pools. We accepted that. As a result of the strategy, Swim Ireland carried out an in-depth analysis of swimming pool provision in Ireland that looked at all sorts of different factors. That gap analysis report is available on its website. That report is being examined by the Department of sport and will be a key input in the future development of swimming pool facilities. It is important to acknowledge our swimmers in the Olympics who have done incredible work representing this country from all parts of the island. I am very proud of them. In some cases, it was difficult for them, with the facilities we have on the island, North and South. We are giving additional funding to Swim Ireland for the deployment of swimming activators who are working with local authorities to try to change the mindset in local authorities. We want increasing participation and we want existing swimming pools opened for longer hours. We have given over €1.5 million to Swim Ireland since I established that fund in 2024. The impact of that is being felt. We have seen an increased number of participation programmes and partnerships throughout 2025, including Carrickmacross. The Department is considering further funding. There are also a number of other funds. We have capital opportunities. I have set out the community sports facilities fund and the large-scale sports infrastructure fund. The former is open and I hope the LSSIF will open again. It is up to the local authority to now work with Sport Ireland and, I suggest, other governing bodies of sports because swimming pools nowadays are not just a pool of water with a shed around them. They tend to be multisport facilities, and that is the way we should be looking at these things.