Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to welcome the news in the past hour that €2.5 million in funding will be set aside for swimming pools across this country. I want to thank Sport Ireland and the Government for releasing this money, because swimming is one of the great participation sports in Ireland.In October, Mr. Peter Conway, the chairperson of Swim Ireland came before us at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht. He spelled out the very precarious position the organisation was in at that time. Registration was down to just 15% and 35 pools remained closed around the country with many on a knife edge. The biggest challenge was the cessation of lessons under the then level 3 restrictions. Swimming is a very important life skill and it is one of the great participation sports. There are 250,000 people who swim at least once or twice every week for one hour. There is no gender gap issue and actually there are more female participants than male participants. It is a great sport and one to be supported. I welcome the money announced today, especially in my own area for the pools in Navan, Trim and Kells. I thank Sport Ireland for keeping this sport afloat during this time. Rather than all of the negative news we debate, and rightly so, in this Chamber, I welcome this positive announcement of €2.5 million for swimming pools across the State.