My Department's capital support for any new swimming pools is now being provided through the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF). The National Development Plan provided a capital allocation of at least €100 million for the Fund over the period to 2027.
The first call for proposals under the LSSIF closed in 2019 with applications confined to local authorities and National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of Sport. The first LSSIF allocations were announced in January 2020 and, to date, approximately €86.4 million has been allocated to 33 projects including 8 swimming pool projects. Full details of all allocations are available at: www.gov.ie/en/service/4113b3-large-scale-sport-infrastructure-fund-lssif/
An application was received from Kildare County Council for design funding towards a new swimming pool at the Maynooth campus with €1 million sought. The total funding applied for under the scheme significantly exceeded the amount available to allocate and the swimming pool project in Maynooth did not score sufficiently highly to be awarded a grant.
All unsuccessful applicants were given the opportunity to appeal the Department’s decision if it was felt than an error was made in the assessment process and an appeal was received from Kildare County Council. All appeals have now been assessed by officials who were not involved in the initial assessment process and no errors were found which warranted an automatic grant.
Officials from my Department and Kildare County Council held a meeting on the 7th December 2022 to discuss the LSSIF programme while also answering any queries the Council had in relation to their previously submitted proposal.
While the priority in the short term is to advance the projects that were already allocated funding, a review of the LSSIF Programme is nearing finalisation. As part of that review, the Department is examining, inter alia, progress on all projects awarded funding to date, whether there is any scope to award additional grants and whether there should be a new call for proposals.
With regard to a possible new round of the LSSIF, Minister Martin and I will continue to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, in relation to the additional funding required and the timing and terms and conditions of any new round of the LSSIF will be announced in due course.
Finally, both the National Sports Policy 2018-2027 and the Sports Action Plan 2021-2023 commit to the development of a National Swimming Strategy. A public consultation on its development closed in October 2022 and work on the analysis of the very large number of responses is now complete. Work on developing the National Swimming Strategy is nearing completion and I hope to be in a position to publish it before the end of 2023. A report detailing the findings of the public consultation process will be made available in tandem with the publication of the Strategy. Future policy on the funding of swimming pools will, of course, reflect the recommendations contained in the Swimming Strategy.
