Matt Carthy
Question:7. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht her plans to reintroduce a local authority swimming pool programme. [27363/20]
View answerThursday, 1 October 2020
Questions (7)
Oral answers (7 contributions)
The Minister will be well aware that I and many others have sought to develop a public swimming pool in Carrickmacross. We are now at the point where a former member of Carrickmacross town council is the Minister who can help us to make this happen. Will the Minister do that?
I have relations in Monaghan and the Minister, Deputy Martin, is from the county.
The local authority swimming pool programme, LASPP, provided grant aid towards the capital cost of new swimming pools or the refurbishment of existing pools. To date, 52 pools have been completed and three swimming pool projects remain in the LASPP.
Exchequer support for any new swimming pool is now being provided by the large scale sports infrastructure fund, LSSIF. It was launched in 2018 to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects, including swimming pools, with at least €100 million being made available over the period to 2027. Provisional allocations totalling €77.4 million for 25 projects under stream 2 of the LSSIF were announced on 10 January 2020. On 13 January additional provisional allocations of €5 million for a further seven projects under stream 1 were announced.
Of these 32 projects, eight swimming pool projects have been awarded funding. The evaluation procedures and guidelines of this scheme provide that once provisional allocations are announced, the successful projects will undergo a further process of due diligence. This includes a further review of projects including economic appraisals and feasibility studies. This work is continuing and a priority in the short term is to advance the projects allocated funding in January. There is no process for applications in the current scheme at present. It is planned, however, to review progress of existing grants in 2021. That will decide whether we open the LSSIF in 2021 to include applications for a swimming pool, which I am sure the Deputy will be pursuing at that point in time. The decisions that are made after the review has taken place will dictate whether it is open in 2021.
I am very disappointed that the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, did not take the opportunity to come in to champion the charge of Carrickmacross. I am sure she will be doing so behind the scenes with her officials. The programme for Government rightly highlights the importance of sporting activities for people of all ages. Swimming is a unique sport because it allows essentially everybody to participate. It is the most inclusive sport that there is in many respects because people can do it as part of competition or leisure, on their own or with family. The problem is that they cannot do it if there is no swimming pool. Carrickmacross is one of many towns with younger populations that have been growing in recent years. We need to see a commitment from the Government. The difficulty with the response read out by the Minister of State is that it is the exact same as the response to a parliamentary question in this House in March. It appears that there is not the urgency or the reflection just yet to press this on. Will the Minister of State ensure that any review that takes place happens quickly, and that we see some movement in this respect as quickly as possible?
Before the Minister of State answers it would be remiss of me not to comment on Carrickmacross. When I was in primary school, which was neither today nor yesterday, I used to buy raffle tickets in the hope that we would have a swimming pool in Carrickmacross by my time in secondary school. It was Dave Phelan who championed it when I was in my secondary school days. I will keep an eye on this development. I will allow Minister of State continue now.
The Deputy has received some local knowledge there. This is a serious issue. Many funding allocations were made at the start of this year under the LSSIF and they are being fed through. We are committed to reviewing progress in 2021 with a view to potentially reopening for applications to include swimming pool projects like that in Carrickmacross, as referred to by the Deputy. We want to reconvene the sports leadership group and we will do that this month. As the Deputy has said, the programme for Government places a key emphasis on participation. The swimming pools in all of our local areas are a very important pillar of participation in that they are available to everybody. The Deputy has also referred to the importance of local authorities in this regard. We have a member of local government on the sports leadership group. When the group is reconvened, there will be discussions on whether the application process will reopen next year, pending the review I have mentioned.
I welcome the Minister of State's responses. In his final remarks, can he deal with the resistance to these types of projects from local authority officials, which is an issue that has become more prevalent? I am most aware of the case of Carrickmacross, where local elected members are united in their determination to see this project delivered. As the Minister, has rightly said, the local community has been campaigning and fundraising for a swimming pool for several decades. Every time something has been asked of the people of Carrickmacross, they have delivered. The difficulty is that many officials within the executive of the local authority are afraid that such a project, if it were to be developed, would end up becoming a drain on the local authority. Projects of this scale cannot always make a profit. It is important that the Department does not decide that this project needs to be cost-neutral. Sometimes the cost-benefit of a project does not come in euros through the door but from its societal benefit, from how it increases the attractiveness of a town for new families to move to and stay, and from the avenue it provides for young and old within the town. Can the Minister of State comment on the long-term sustainability of these projects when, hopefully, they are delivered?
We recognised the importance of swimming pools in the July stimulus. Some €2.5 million was announced to support them, to continue their operation throughout the pandemic and to provide increased capacity for such facilities. The programme for Government and the national sports policy refer specifically to the importance of facilities that are run by local authorities. The reason we have the LSSIF can be seen when one looks at this year's funding allocations. Some €4.7 million has been allocated for swimming pools specifically, with a further €4.1 million in 2021 and a projected €3.9 million in 2022. As I have said, that will be subject to review next year with a view to potentially reopening applications. We want to support local authority swimming pools.
As a former member of a local authority, I acknowledge the Deputy's point that there can be disagreement between the executive and elected members. The elected Members here, along with the personnel in the Department, recognise the importance of swimming pools in local communities and the broad participation they ensure for people who want to swim. There is also a safety aspect to this because we want to ensure we have enough people across our country who can swim. To that end, it is important that local communities have access to swimming pools. We are trying to support these projects on an operational basis and to support the provision and allocation of greater capital injection towards swimming pools. We note the Deputy's serious commitment to Carrickmacross. I know that the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, has a particular interest there as well.