Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Carthy. As he knows, capital support for new swimming pools and the refurbishment of existing pools continues to be provided by the Department through the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF, which to date has allocated €28.9 million to nine swimming pools throughout the country. Investment in a swimming pool for Monaghan, as the Deputy knows, is a matter for the local authority in the first instance. Once the next round of the LSSIF opens, Monaghan County Council will be eligible to apply for funding.

Ireland’s first national swimming strategy, which was published in August 2024, sets out a vision to provide everyone in our country with an opportunity to swim. It includes an action plan containing more than 50 actions across five thematic strands, focusing on providing improved facilities, increasing access for people with disabilities and 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.

Responsibility for the delivery of the strategy’s action plan will be shared across Departments, State agencies and other key stakeholders, including local authorities. Sport Ireland has established an oversight group of key stakeholders to give leadership, policy direction, prioritisation and mobilisation of resources to support, monitor and measure the strategy’s implementation. My current focus is on ensuring project delivery under the first two rounds of the LSSIF, from 2019 and 2024. There have only ever been two rounds. I would expect, and it is our objective, that the period until the next round of the LSSIF will be shorter than the period between the previous two. There were five years between the previous two. There was a significant gap in funding infrastructure until that large-scale sport infrastructure fund was introduced. It will be subject to our capital allocations within the national development plan. Within a much shorter timeframe, we hope to be able to run a new round. Monaghan County Council should work to have its preparation in place in order to be able to apply whenever it opens.

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