Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister of State's reply and acknowledge the good work that has been done. He will accept, however, that while excellent calls have been published and funding has been drawn down, several projects are still simply caught in the process. I have deep knowledge of two such local projects in my constituency, including one of the pools in which I learned to swim. That was the infamous Glenalbyn swimming pool in Stillorgan, which has still not been redeveloped. The finance is in place and planning permission has been secured but agreement has not been reached between the local authority and the GAA. I call on the Minister of State to use his offices to intervene to get this situation resolved speedily. Generations of young children in that area have not had access to learn to swim in a public facility. The situation is the same just up the road in the Samuel Beckett Civic Campus. Planning permission has been obtained for the swimming pool and funding has been secured, but the project has still not gone to tender and construction has not started. The knock-on effect is that I and many dozens of other parents will spend three or four hours queueing to sign our children up for swimming lessons when those become available.

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