Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's willingness to engage with the local authority. Galway County Council has asked Government for support of €3 million to assist it in developing proposals for swimming pools, including project development, site design, and planning permission, to put it in a position to access capital funding. Will that be considered? Can that form part of the Minister of State's discussions with the county council? Like I said, Galway County Council is a particular case and raising the local property tax will not address the significant funding challenges that we have. On a bigger scale, we know that money is available. Investing in the health and wellbeing of our communities is a worthwhile investment. I ask the Minister of State to look at the specific case in Loughrea, to take the funding issues that the council has into account and to engage with it on that request for €3 million for development of facilities.

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