Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 427: To ask the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport if a special case separate to the swimming pool programme could be made for a town (details supplied) in County Dublin with the local authorities advised of same along with the application; if her attention has been drawn to the fact that South Dublin County Council did not apply under the old programme in 2000 due to its belief that such a project required it to await the guidelines on public or private partnership as indicated in responses to this Deputy in Dáil Éireann in 2003, 2004 and 2005; if her further attention has been drawn to the fact that while the local authority did indicate in 2006 that it was willing to build a pool out of its own resources, with Exchequer funding desirable but not necessary, it has now suffered a loss of revenue stream due to the downturn and cannot now fund out of its own resources. [31261/10]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme, which is administered by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport funding is allocated towards the construction, refurbishment or replacement of public swimming pool facilities throughout the country. The current round of the Programme was closed to new applicants since 31 July 2000 and no application was made in respect of a public swimming pool for Lucan before that date. South Dublin County Council applied for and received the maximum grant of €3.8m for a new pool at Jobstown and a replacement pool at Clondalkin under the current round of the Programme.

Under the current round of the programme, 57 applications were received, of which 45 projects have been completed and opened to the public. The priority now is to work with the relevant local authorities in completing the remaining 12 pool projects, which are included in the current round. Since the current round commenced in 2000, total expenditure to date has amounted to €144.5m million and this has leveraged a total investment of some €400m. The allocation of €7.5m in 2010 will be sufficient to meet commitments arising in 2010 under the current round of the Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme. When the Programme is re-opened, it will be open to all local authorities, including South Dublin County Council on behalf of Lucan, to submit applications under the terms that will apply.