New swimming strategy will 'address gaps in provision'

Minister of State for Sport Thomas Byrne has said that the new National Swimming Strategy, which has been worked on for the past few years, will address the gaps and deficits in swimming provision.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said the strategy will ensure proper provision for swimming and the €500,000 being announced today is "to put in place activators, like the GAA's games promotion officers around the country" to encourage people into swimming and to work with local authorities to maximise facilities.

Work has been done on the large-scale sports infrastructure fund for this purpose, he added.

"There are a number of grants there that have been awarded to swimming pools as a local authority swimming pool programme - the last swimming pools of which are finally kind of under way. Lucan is under construction, Edenderry - there's design work going on at the moment.

"We have a large scale sports infrastructure fund currently being considered at the moment and a number of swimming pools' projects have applied for funding under that."

Mr Byrne said there will be record funding in the autumn for all sports, including swimming, which is only possible due to a strong working relationship between himself and ministers Catherine Martin and Paschal Donohoe.

He rejected comparisons with funding of €19m for greyhound racing and €76m for horse racing as he said they are funded by the Department of Agriculture.

He said that there is over €250m for local sports projects to be announced in September, and over €120m will be announced for large scale projects and major projects around the country. "Plus we've given the go ahead for a tender process to start; in other words construction to effectively go ahead, of a national velodrome