Swimming Pools Dail Éireann — 2026-05-07 ============================================================ Charlie McConalogue (FF), Donegal Ireland's first ever national swimming strategy was published in 2024 and sets out a vision to provide everyone in our country with an opportunity to swim. It includes an action plan containing over 50 actions across five thematic strands, focusing on providing improved facilities, increasing access for people with disabilities, improving the culture of inclusion, better coaching supports, increasing safety awareness and providing a pathway that allows for the nurturing and development of potential high performers. Further to a specific action in the strategy, Swim Ireland carried out an in-depth analysis of swimming pool provision within Ireland, examining the condition and age of facilities, community accessibility, the availability of swimming lessons, energy and sustainability practices and the provincial and county-level distribution of pools. The resultant Swimming Pool Gap Analysis Report was published in late 2025 and is available on Swim Ireland’s website. The report is currently being examined by my Department and will be a key input to the future development of swimming pool facilities by enabling enhanced decision-making with regard to targeting investment more effectively. The report was funded by the Department of sport. The report was carried out and commissioned by Swim Ireland on the back of the funding from the Government for that purpose. At the moment, two capital funding programmes support investment in sports infrastructure, namely the community sports facilities fund, CSFF, and the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF. LSSIF applications must be made by either a local authority or a national governing body of sport. The LSSIF is currently closed to applications, and no decisions have yet been made regarding the timing of the next round. Applications for the refurbishment of pools, for other swimming infrastructure works and for the purchase of non-personal swimming equipment can be made under the CSFF, the next round of which we intend to open in the near future over the summer. We will continue to fully assess the report in terms of how we can support the issues and gaps raised and clarified. --- 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/2026-05-07/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-07