Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Tragically an average of 110 people drown each year in Ireland. Irish Water Safety says this is unacceptable considering most of the fatalities are avoidable. We are entering into the bank holiday weekend. It is normally this weekend that our local authorities put the swimming guards on duty at all our open lake areas and wherever there is a blue flag, including on our beaches. Unfortunately, in my own constituency and that of Senator Murphy, we only have one public pool in our area and that happens to be in Tuam. While there is one in Ballinasloe, that is in the Galway-Roscommon constituency. There is a need for a pool in the south of our constituency. We depend on Kinvara, which is on the Atlantic, we have the lake in Loughrea and we have the River Shannon in Portumna. Aside from that, in the south there is nothing other than swim week during which Irish Water Safety does phenomenal work, led by Galway County Council and Shane Coogan who covers that area.

During the off-peak season there is nowhere for people to learn to swim. One of the best times to teach children to swim is when it is part of the school curriculum. Normally it is taught in second and third class and children look forward to that opportunity of learning to swim. Regrettably we cannot afford that to our children in our area. It is fantastic that Ballindereen will have a pop-up pool later this summer, which will meet some of the demands of the children of south Galway. However, with a growing population and with such demand, it will not service everybody by any manner of means. There is a group in Loughrea looking for a pool. Sometimes we consider viability and the role of local authorities and there is no doubt that pools are expensive facilities to run. There is also no doubt local authorities struggle to run them but at the same time we have to weigh up the need for education. This should form part of the educational curriculum. We should be providing the external opportunity for children to learn to swim, particularly when they live in areas with lots of lakes and rivers and, at the same time, the statistics show there are 110 drownings every year. There is no way one week's water safety classes can ensure that people will be safe. I want everybody to be safe coming into the summer season. I want them to take heed of the flags and I want them to always swim near a lifeguard and to swim with a buddy, check with the lifeguard, use sun cream, obey posted signs and flags, keep the beaches and water clean, learn to understand various currents, and always, which I only learned last week from Shane Coogan, if people decide to jump or dive in their local river, it should always be twice their depth.