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Sink or swim: Ireland's public swimming pools need a lifeline - here's why

The ebb and flow of government funding is the core problem facing public pools.

CLOSED FACILITIES, LIMITED hours and a lack of investment – some of the complaints people have about swimming pools in Ireland. 

Yet behind the scenes, it’s often hard to decipher who is to blame. With a complex web of funding streams and no clear responsibility for building swimming infrastructure, the sector often appears to fall between the cracks of cash-strapped local councils and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. 

Across the country, the same stories are heard over and over again – of local pools closing, followed by protracted (and sometimes successful) campaigns to re-open them.

Others argue that there are enough pools – but issues like cost, staffing and demand make keeping them open difficult. 

Swimming is widely recognised as a sport that appeals to all ages and abilities – it’s one of the characteristics of the sport praised by the government in the National Sports Strategy. 

Most of all, it’s popular – a 2013 study found that 230,000 adults swim each week.

In Dublin, some council-run pools, such as Coolock and Sean McDermott Street, only open to the public for brief windows every week, while Markievicz Leisure Centre could face demolition under plans for the new MetroLink. 

And with Dublin City Council set to spend €22m on the creation of a white-water rafting attraction at George’s Dock in the IFSC, questions have been raised about why some of this money can’t be used to improve local swimming facilities in the capital. 

Local councillors protest that it’s not that simple – but to many it’s testament to swimming’s long-held status as something of a forgotten sport in Ireland.

The Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme, through which the government provides funding to councils to invest in swimming facilities, has provided something of a lifeline to council-run pools for two decades – but the number of public pools in Ireland has remained static in the meantime at around 100 . 

Funding from the scheme has also dropped significantly, from €27.8m in 2007 to only €4.2m in 2019 – scarcely enough to build a single pool. 

One reason for this could simply be the most obvious one – pools are expensive and councils are worried about making them commercially viable. 

“Nobody expects libraries to make money. But pools are expected to make money,” says Mary McMorrow from Swim Ireland, the national governing body for swimming. “But pools shouldn’t necessarily be expected to make money.”

For the last decade, the story has been one of refurbishment and upgrades – with very few new pools built by councils under the scheme. 

Even where pools are open, the public often only have a brief window for which to use them – funding limitations too often mean that use is often restricted to schools and lessons. 

The debacle over the Clontarf Baths, which was redeveloped but now remains largely off limits to the general public, has left many questioning where priorities lie when it comes to water-based sport. 

Yet Dublin Labour councillor Dermot Lacey says that local councils’ hands are tied when it comes to building more pools. 

“We don’t really have an independent source of financing,” he says. Most pools in use today, says Lacey, were built at a time when local councils had more discretionary funding. 

pool protest 424 The closure of pools are often emotive issues. Sam Boal / Rollingnews.ie Sam Boal / Rollingnews.ie / Rollingnews.ie

Now, any funding given is “constrained by central government for the purpose for which it is given”. 

“Money is allocated in silos – just for that purpose, just for that purpose,” he adds. 

In the 1990s, spending on pools declined. In 1992, only €0.3 million was given to councils to spend on pool infrastructure. By 1999, it had risen – but only to €5.7 million. 

By 2007, the number of people per public pool was 58,000. In 2011, the target was to lower that to one public pool per 50,000.

The figure today? The Department of Sport didn’t have the exact figure when contacted by TheJournal.ie - but there are around 100 public pools in Ireland today, putting the figure at around one pool per 48,000 people. 

“It can be seen that the Exchequer amounts made available up to 1998, averaged little over the total eligible cost of one swimming pool per year in those years,” a Department of Arts, Tourism and Sport policy review from the start of the decade notes. 

“Where pools were built in the 1990s this seems to have occurred in an ad hoc manner, due to the pressure, persistence and persuasiveness of local interests. The amount of Exchequer funding being provided annually was equivalent to one new pool a year and therefore marked no substantive provision for refurbishment or increase in public pool stock”, the same report notes. 

Availability

The latest figures from the CSO indicate that just under three million people are within 5km of a swimming pool. 

However, figures vary – in Galway 55% of people lived 10km from a swimming pool, while the figure was 53% in Longford. 

With around 400 swimming pools of some variety in Ireland, the supply is there – yet questions remain over access and the location. 

One of the strange quirks of the 2008 crash was that hotels quickly became a key source of pools for many people. Today, 50% of Irish pools are in the hotel sector – a product of financial necessity as businesses were forced open up membership to the public to raise funds. 

But one problem for Swim Ireland, says Mary McMorrow, is the distance of pools from schools – on one scheme for DEIS schools run by the organisation, 50% of the costs came from transport to and from pools. 

Signs of change?

Plans for a national swim strategy – an unprecedented focus on the sport – could help to drastically improve the sector says Conn McCluskey, the Chief Executive of Ireland Active, an umbrella body for the leisure industry. 

“There is adequate swimming pool provision in many areas,” he argues. “But there are pockets that need a pool.”

Where those pockets are remains somewhat hard to decipher, with significant questions over cost, opening hours and whether the pool is in public or private hands. 

“The difficulty in building a swimming pool is that the construction and operating costs are largely the same whether they are in Leitrim or Dublin, however the populations are vastly different,” he says – making the cost of developing a pool or leisure centre dependent on the potential customer base. 

“The development of the National Swimming Strategy will provide some of the answers to whether we have adequate provision,” says McCluskey. “Without the data, industry information and a strategic approach, it is difficult to answer.”

McMorrow thinks things are changing for the better. “There is a receptive ear,” she says of the government – which seems to be slowly paying attention after years of Swim Ireland jockeying for position alongside GAA, rugby and soccer. 

The National Sports Strategy for 2018-2027 focuses heavily on swimming, which has started to benefit from the newly created Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund. 

Only last Friday, several million euros was allocated to upgrade swimming facilities across the country with money from this fund, which also provided €15 million to build a new swimming pool in Galway city with capabilities for sports like water polo. 

Nonetheless, it’ll still take years to determine whether the tide can be turned when it comes to challenges facing public swimming pools. 

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    Mute Michael Russell
    Favourite Michael Russell
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:57 PM

    Forgive my ignorance of science & biology , but genuine question: just because earth life forms produce methane…. Does it necessarily mean alien life forms do? Can we base the fundamentals of all possible life on what we have seen on earth? (Earth is a very small sample to use in the context of the universe!)

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:09 PM

    I don’t care what they do or don’t find tbh. They continuously blow my mind in what they achieve. They make me feel proud of men.

    44
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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:36 PM

    A tad sexist don’t you think?

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:57 PM

    No. I don’t think it’s sexist really as I’ve had an interest in space exploration for 30 years and I know the stories and names of many people involved from reading about it for years and they’re all men.

    I see your point though.

    29
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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:10 AM

    All men? Niall? Here’s a link for you:
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_astronauts
    Valentina Tereschkova? (Apologies for the spelling!)
    And the last several times I saw a launch there were a number of women in the control room, none of whom were handing round coffee or acting as secretaries!

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:23 AM

    I’m talking historically Mary. From landing on the moon to designing the rockets and shuttles – all the way back to the Wright sisters in fact :)

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    Mute Pádraig O'hEidhin
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    Sep 20th 2013, 7:23 AM

    Mary, a little lady like you would be best placed catering to your husbands needs, rather than commenting on mens issues like this.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:08 AM

    @Michael

    No it doesn’t. However, life as it is on earth is the only kind we have to go on. If you want to search for another kind of life you’ll first have to come up with a hypothesis of what form it would take and then what indicators that life would produce. Have fun with that!

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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 20th 2013, 11:58 AM

    No point arguing in troll’s Mary

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:00 PM

    Wouldn’t waste my breath on ‘em.

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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:16 PM

    Lol historically speaking that is.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:28 PM

    Good. Time to have a look at Europa and Titan!

    36
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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:53 PM

    The Martians are underground here waiting. Do you guys not watch good quality cinema???

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:11 PM

    Some great documentaries on YouTube bout that but you’ve probably seen them. On a proxy iPhone right now so I can’t link them. Mind blowing stuff.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:15 PM

    Some good documentaries about the structures and pyramids on mars in the area known as cydonia

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:23 PM

    And the face looking at you from Cydonia.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:29 PM

    Richard C Hoagland is the leading investigator on the face , pyramids mars in general dozens of interviews n lectures out there for those who find the topic interesting

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    Mute Brendan Harlowe
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:57 PM

    Yeah , the face disappeared on higher resolution images! Just a mountain after all!

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:12 AM

    Killjoy ….

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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 2:51 AM

    Yeah they took the picture with the mons Olympus camera…

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:11 AM

    OMFG, we’ve regressed to the face on mars dumb-arsery.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:18 AM

    you need to watch this…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:20 AM
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    Mute Jack Mc Connoron
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:17 PM

    Bet the martians are saying the exact same thing about earth!

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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:23 PM

    No, they are saying “that rover you bought on ebay is outside Ted”.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:03 PM

    Yes but the real question is whether life existed on Mars in the past, not now. If it can be shown that life existed there a long time ago, it opens questions about the origin of life on this planet.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:32 PM

    I doubt the powers that be would tell us if they found proof of life

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:23 AM

    That’s the problem, they treat us like mushrooms.. keep us in the dark and feed us shite.

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    Mute Burch Barlow
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    Sep 20th 2013, 8:04 AM

    And fluoride!!!!

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    Mute Jason Culligan
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    Sep 20th 2013, 10:34 AM

    They’ve already come to the conclusion that it is possible Mars held life at one point. The problem is finding the concrete evidence is quite hard to achieve, especially when your only way of searching for the evidence is by firing probes in the direction of Mars and hoping they work if they get there.

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    Mute Barry Aston
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:15 PM

    Really! Bollix.

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    Mute Sean Mac Gabhann
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:51 PM

    No point going back to paddy power then.

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    Mute Steve501
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:28 PM

    Interesting. Ur I bet there is life in a galaxy far far away.

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:13 PM

    With such a thin atmosphere, it’s no wonder that no methane was found. Any life that ever existed would’ve had to have come into being way back when Mars had an active core and magnetic field. Those days are long past, billions of years gone.

    Titan’s our best bet in this solar system.

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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:32 PM

    Europa.

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    Mute Mark O Flaherty
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    Sep 20th 2013, 3:32 AM

    Martians don’t fart…that’s what’s going on. A Dutch oven is impossible for them…..women of earth would love a Martian man

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    Mute John king
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:05 PM

    Live on Mars already migrated long ago to a place we call China today ;-.) Not too long now and those aliens (we call them Chinese) soon will take over the world…

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:11 PM

    What?

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    Mute Stephen McMahon
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:47 PM

    That’s not true, the Chinese are a great bunch of lads!

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    Mute Jazz O'Gorman
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:17 PM

    Obviously.

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    Mute Virginia Black
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:20 AM

    This is interesting. It’ll be a while still before it reaches Mount Sharp to calculate when life may have been possible. I remember reading about early astronomers who thought they saw canals on Mars’ surface but they were actually just scratches on their lenses they were looking at.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:26 PM

    Mars looks at unhappy, maybe doesn’t like his photo being taken without permission..

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