Could Sligo become home to the north west’s first 50 metre pool?

By Philip Rooney, The Sligo Champion

Cllr Fergal Nealon has called on Sligo County Council to commission a full feasibility study into the provision of a 50 metre swimming pool in Sligo, in a motion before September’s plenary meeting of the Council.

The motion seeks a study covering site options, capital and operational cost projections, catchment and usage analysis, and an assessment of the project’s suitability for a Stream 1 application under the next round of the Government’s Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund, with the findings to be returned to the elected members for consideration.

The call follows Swim Ireland’s national swimming pool gap analysis, A Pool Within Reach, which found that there is no 50 metre pool anywhere in Connacht and that residents of the province travel an average of 100 kilometres to reach long course water. The same report found that the Republic has roughly one public pool for every 81,000 people, and that a majority of pools on the island are located in hotels, where public access is frequently limited.

“Draw a line between Dublin, Limerick and Belfast, and every 50 metre pool on this island sits inside it,” Cllr Nealon said. “North and west of that line there is nothing. Not in Sligo, not in Leitrim, not in Donegal, not in Mayo, not in Roscommon, not in Fermanagh. Sligo sits right in the middle of that gap, and that makes us the single strongest case in the country on need.”

Cllr Nealon acknowledged the report prepared for the meeting by the Council executive, which pointed to a 2023 viability assessment of a 25 metre pool and to earlier findings on operational costs at Castlebar, but said it addressed a different question.

“I have no quarrel with the report, but it relies on a 2023 assessment of a smaller facility, for a different purpose, before the National Swimming Strategy and before Swim Ireland’s gap analysis were published. And it counts hotel pools as public provision, which is precisely the practice that Swim Ireland’s national report identifies as the problem. A hotel leisure pool is a fine amenity. You cannot run a club, a schools programme or a training squad out of it.”

On the suggestion in the report that a future assessment would favour a larger population centre, Cllr Nealon said the argument worked against itself.

“In this region, the larger population centre is Galway, and Galway is a little over an hour down the M18 from the national 50 metre pool at the University of Limerick. Galway is served. Sligo is two and a half to three hours from anything. If the criterion is genuine unmet need, Sligo wins. If the criterion is catchment, a Sligo facility draws from five counties in this State and two across the border, and no other location does that.”

He also pointed to the operational model as the gap in previous assessments.

“Castlebar looked at a standalone municipal pool and the numbers did not work, and I accept that. But every working 50 metre pool in this State outside Abbotstown sits on a university campus, because the institution provides the year round demand that closes the operating gap. Sligo has ATU, a university spanning Sligo, Letterkenny, Galway, Mayo and Donegal.”

Cllr Nealon said the case was brought home by the county’s most successful sportsperson.

Bronze medallist Ireland's Mona McSharry celebrates during the Women's 50m Breaststroke medal ceremony in August. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes © REUTERS

“Mona McSharry is from Grange. She is an Olympic bronze medallist and she took three medals at the European Championships in Paris this summer. To get there, she and her brother were put in a car before dawn, six mornings a week, and driven over the county bounds into Donegal, because there was no water for her at home. That is a wonderful story and it is also a quietly shameful one. Talent has never been Sligo’s problem. Water is Sligo’s problem.”

He stressed that the motion commits no capital and asked that the study be scoped on a regional basis.

“This is a study, not a pool. It commits not one cent of capital. I am asking that we scope it regionally and invite Leitrim, Donegal, Mayo and Roscommon in alongside Swim Ireland, ATU and the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, and that we seek support towards the cost of the study itself from Sport Ireland and the Department, given that their own national report identifies this exact gap.”

“And there is a very practical reason this matters now. Stream 1 of the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund is designed for projects at an early stage of planning, and to apply you must already hold a definitive project brief, outline costs and a feasibility report. Without the study, Sligo cannot apply. Not this round, not the next round, not ever. We are not choosing between a pool and no pool today. We are choosing between being able to make our case and being locked out of making it.”

The motion was supported by Cllr Thomas Walsh who said, “This is a project that should be deliverable, we want it in Sligo.”

Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.