Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We expect it to conclude early next year, more than likely. I had hoped to conclude it by the end of the year but 6,000 responses were received. As the Deputy will be aware, there are many consultations done in communities with often less than 100 responses in many instances. That shows the scale of the interest. We expect it to conclude early next year.

On the question of the deficits of infrastructure, we have a separate piece of work ongoing with Sport Ireland to map and match every piece of sporting infrastructure across the country so that one can quickly see where there are specific deficits within communities where there might be long commuter times. That must have a parallel role in how we invest our capital resources that where there is a specific deficit we can address that through funding streams going into the future. That is an important strategic piece of work.

We are keen as well to deliver new swimming opportunities. We have the traditional model, which is to build a big leisure centre in certain areas where there are then longer commutes for people. The pop-up pools have been a great example where one can bring a piece of infrastructure into a community that brings water safety and swimming lessons for communities that have never had the opportunity to have that, apart from a long commute. They are the types of new models of delivering infrastructure which we are examining. That is one element of it but there are other examples that Swim Ireland is working on. We are engaging with them on that.

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