Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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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.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Gogarty for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan. Government investment in sport is essential to increase participation levels in all sports across all sectors of society. The allocation for the sports programme in budget 2026 is over €290 million, an increase of just under €60 million or 26% compared to the 2025 allocation. When the national sports policy was published in 2018, it set a commitment to double investment in sport to more than €220 million by 2027. Obviously, we are significantly ahead of that already.

With regard to the development of physical sports infrastructure, the role of the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport is to provide capital funding for such facilities, including swimming pools. The construction and day-to-day operation of swimming pools is a matter for the respective local authority in the first instance. The Department operates two capital funding programmes for sport, namely the community sports facilities fund, CSFF, and the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF. Over €250 million was allocated to 3,048 community sports clubs and facilities in 2024 from the 2023 round of the CSFF, representing the largest ever investment in sports facilities in communities across Ireland. The LSSIF was established under the 2018 national sports policy to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects, typically those requiring investments greater than the maximum available under the CSFF. A total of €297 million has been invested through the LSSIF across 68 projects. The 2018 round awarded €124 million to 33 projects, including top-ups in 2023. In November 2024, €173 million was allocated to 35 projects following record demand. An allocation of €28.9 million was made to nine swimming pool projects. In addition, the CSFF has provided allocations in excess of €5 million over the last ten years to swimming projects.

Previously, the local authority swimming pool programme, LASPP, provided grant aid towards the capital costs of new swimming pools or the refurbishment of existing pools. Fifty-two pools have been completed and just one swimming pool project, Lucan, remains in the programme. Lucan swimming pool is currently under construction. I note that South Dublin County Council handed over the dry-side facilities, including the gym, to the appointed operator on 22 July 2025. These facilities were subsequently opened to the public on 28 July 2025. In relation to the funding provided to Lucan swimming pool, the Department, as the Deputy rightly states, provided a grant aid allocation of €3.8 million from the LASPP to South Dublin County Council, which is responsible for delivery of the policy. Formal approval for the grant was provided in 2019. To date, the Department has paid out €3.2 million to South Dublin County Council for the ongoing construction works on Lucan swimming pool. South Dublin County Council has confirmed that the construction programme for Lucan leisure campus was impacted, as the Deputy said, by supply chain issues, Covid and the war in Ukraine. Since then, various other factors have contributed to project delays.

I am informed that South Dublin County Council is actively working to advance the project and ensure delivery of the facility for the people of the area. A tender process for appointing a replacement contractor is complete and a preferred bidder has been identified and notified. This step is critical to progressing the project and completing the remaining works. The newly appointed contractor will assume responsibility for co-ordinating all remaining works which will include finalising the swimming pool element of the development. Following the conclusion of the contractual arrangements, an updated project completion date will be communicated publicly. This will provide clarity and certainty to the community regarding the timeframe for opening the leisure centre and swimming pool complex.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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Now that the Minister of State has given the response, I can go into a little more of the nitty-gritty. The Minister of State mentioned the Covid issues and the restrictions on working practices, etc. The council was aware of this from an early stage but it took the word of the contractor. I have had stories told to me about electricians walking off site because they were not getting paid commensurate to the increases in costs. As they are obviously the ones who have to certify the work, this would have caused delays. What we were told by the council which could not be put into the public domain was that while that contract was live, it had to adopt a softly-softly approach because if the council had to re-tender the contract, it would massively increase costs and delay construction of the pool. Three years later, we have seen a massive increase in costs. The original pool was approximately €10 million. It was €13 million at the commencement and now it has gone up to €20 million. We have had an increase in costs that goes way above Covid and supply chain increases.

We have had a time delay that goes way above what it would have taken to get rid of the contractor and act on clauses at a much earlier stage. There has been a massive clamour for proper transparency - as there has been none - from members of the public in Lucan who have been looking for this pool for years. The council has consistently refused to give any sort of information now that the contract is complete from the McLoughlins side on why it held on as long as it did. What were the factors? There could be valid factors. I would like to see them in the public domain. We cannot wait until after the pool is completed. We need this information now because it is a huge waste of public money that we need to investigate. I ask that the State would use its own resources to try and get such an inquiry going.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Gogarty. It is obviously an exceptionally important project for his area that he has campaigned for over a significant period of time. I acknowledge the people that were previously involved, including his own dad, as he mentioned.

Sport is really important, as are pools. I come from a sporting background myself in that I am a qualified physical education teacher. I understand the importance of having good quality sports infrastructure in all of our communities right across the country.

As I said in my opening statement - it speaks to some of the frustration the Deputy has outlined - of the 52 pool projects under the local authority swimming pool projects, only one of them remains uncompleted, and that is Lucan swimming pool. The positives I take from the response that I have put on the record of the House is that a new contractor has now been appointed in order to complete the works. That is very important.

In terms of swimming more generally, the 2024 to 2027 strategy sets out an important vision in order to try to increase participation and take-up of people in learning what is a very valuable life skill, as close to their communities as possible. The Government will continue to put additional funding behind the swim strategy. Some €1.5 million has been allocated for the period 2025 to 2026. The governing body, Swim Ireland, is currently undertaking an analysis of the overall ownership structure of swimming pools across the country that will feed in to future projects. I assure the Deputy that this is something the Department will keep a close eye on, as we want to see this project completed and the pool opened as quickly as possible.