Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

We need a full public inquiry into Lucan swimming pool, at least to the point of the termination of the contract of the most recent contractor, McLoughlin.

The history of this pool is an absolute mess. In the 1980s, Lucan Community Council collected moneys for a leisure centre. People paid towards this and were promised a pool in phase 2. Unfortunately, the project went into debt with a bank loan to AIB and had to be bailed out by the council and Lucan leisure centre became owned by South Dublin County Council. People were still asking whether they could have a pool. In 2002, the council said it was sorry but the swimming pool programme was closed and we could not apply. I was a TD at the time. I put in a number of parliamentary questions and was told that we could have still applied. The council made a hames of it for the first time at that time.

Along with my colleague and friend, the late Councillor Fintan McCarthy, I was involved in the swimlucan.com campaign in 2005. We collected over 1,000 postcard petitions and an equal number of emails were sent into South Dublin County Council. Fintan was able to get a commitment from the council that it would add the Lucan swimming pool to its own programme. The response was that while the council was committed to building a pool out of its own funds, it would be remiss not to seek funding elsewhere as well. That was the story. Unfortunately, in 2006, my late friend and colleague died tragically in an accident in China. His vacant seat was taken over by my late father, Billy Gogarty, who subsequently became mayor. He was told during his term as mayor that he would be turning the sod for Lucan swimming pool. This was in 2007. Unfortunately, he died tragically of a brain tumour in 2008. His replacement, Councillor Dorothy Corrigan, in due course asked about the pool. The council stated that there were no plans for a pool at the time. Having given a commitment, they reneged on it after two people involved in the project died under tragic circumstances.

It is no surprise that, in 2014, when I came onto South Dublin County Council again, my first speech in the chamber was about the Lucan swimming pool. This time there were a number of a community individuals, including Helen Farrell and Sandra Whelan, who were interested in doing a campaign on the pool. Along with other councillors, including Liona O'Toole, Guss O'Connell and Francis Timmons, I decided to support their massive campaign to bring it back into the eyesight of the then county manager. After a number of trials and tribulations, we got it into the county development plan and the rolling three-year programme and the council committed €6.2 million towards a pool. This is where it becomes a matter of State interest because €3.8 million of that initial investment came from national sources.

The pool design was passed in 2018 and we were told that construction would commence the following year and it would be completed in 2020-21. Covid hit, obviously, there were supply chain issues and prices went up. At some stage in the period between 2020 and 2022, the council took its eye off the ball. When I was a councillor, I submitted many questions asking when the pool was going to be completed. We were told that it would happen in December 2022, in April 2023, and so on. A new architect was appointed to oversee the project a year and a half ago. That individual deserves a medal because they have been chasing a lost cause. They were trying to keep their finger on the pulse of what was happening with the contractor. The contractor was not allowing any proper oversight until recently. The contract was then terminated. The council said it cannot do a review until the project is finished but I believe a review up to the point of the contractor's termination is absolutely necessary.

See this speech in context