Swimming Pools
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20
============================================================

Darren O'Rourke (SF), Meath East

I mentioned my experience as a child going to school in Kells. We had pretty unique access to Kells Swimming Pool, which is a public swimming pool. There are a number of important findings in the report. I am glad the Department commissioned it. I hope it pays attention to those findings and acts on them. The important piece is access. I talk about Kells, and we think of areas in Leinster, Connacht and south Munster where it is very stark. The issue with hotel pools is they mask a greater problem. I talked about my experience, which is a very wide experience in terms of access to lessons for kids. In County Meath, 100% of the swimming pools have a waiting list. It is a very significant issue.
I will ask about something in my supplementary question that the Minister of State touched on. There is a key finding in the report in relation to the dependence on the private sector and hotels, but also local authorities essentially stepping away from this work and passing it over to the private sector. As a result of that, there is closure of swimming pools or pools being available on a reduced hours basis, although not to swimming clubs. Swim Ireland referenced an alternative model. Is that something the Minister of State will consider as a potential to increase access?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-20