Lorraine Clifford-Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a need for a debate on the national swimming strategy for the period 2024 to 2027. This was launched last August by the then Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, and aims to provide everyone in Ireland with an opportunity to swim. The strategy focuses on enhancing facilities, coaching, safety awareness and pathways for high-performance athletes. A key component is an allocation of €500,000 to Swim Ireland for hiring swimming activators within local authorities, promoting increased swimming participation.

Access, inclusion and disability form a really strong component of the strategy, ensuring people of all ages and abilities have access to swimming. Infrastructure and facilities comprise a huge part of the strategy also. I would like to raise this matter particularly in respect of my constituency in north County Dublin where we have no public swimming pool. There has been a campaign for many years to provide a public swimming pool in Balbriggan to serve the neighbouring communities of Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Lusk. There are 26,000 people living in Balbriggan, 12,000 in Skerries, 12,000 in Rush and 10,000 in Lusk. There are villages nearby, including Naul, Garristown, Ballyboughal, Oldtown and Loughshinny, with significant populations also, but there is no public swimming pool.

There is now a real divide in people's ability to access swimming facilities. Those who can afford to travel and have the time to travel a long distance can access a swimming pool and benefit from being able to swim whereas those who are not in this category simply cannot benefit. That is completely unacceptable. A site has been identified in Balbriggan to provide the swimming pool and Government funding is available but there seem to be roadblocks. We need to figure this out. If we had a debate on the national swimming strategy, we could tease these issues out with the Minister.

A cross-governmental committee was to be set up under the strategy. I would like an update on that. Education, lessons and coaching form part of the strategy, as does enhancing formal lessons within the education system. Many of our European counterparts have extremely high levels of swimming competency. Swimming is a core life skill we should all have being an island nation. Open-water swimming forms part of the strategy as well. It is a matter of improving open-water swimming facilities and promoting safety measures. We are an island nation. During Covid, many people took to sea swimming, so we need to encourage and facilitate this.

I refer to pathways and performance, boosting participation across all life stages, expanding club membership and developing pathways for potential high performers. Out of the seven Olympic medals Ireland won, three were for swimming. This is really significant, but without the facilities in all communities, I am afraid that young children in places like Balbriggan and Skerries cannot aspire to the heights of winning Olympic medals in the way they should. They cannot access a public swimming pool. I ask the Deputy Leader for a debate on the national swimming strategy. I would appreciate it.