A Cork city swimming club has bought a 50m pool used in the 2022 Commonwealth Games with ambitions of finding it a permanent home in the county.
The modular 50m training pool with six lanes was bought by Dolphin Swimming Club earlier this year for €100,000 raised entirely by club members.
It was transported from England to Cork in May on four lorries and is being housed in a storage unit in the city.
Club Chairman Guiseppe Whelan said that while they have no site or funds as yet to built a permanent home for the pool, it was "too good an opportunity to miss".
The club was approached through Swim Ireland.
Mr Whelan said the cost price of the modular pool is over STG£1m if bought new. They purchased it for €100,000.
"We got it at a significantly reduced rate, all in - transport, Custom and Excise for €100,000 - so it was very hard to turn that down. The members of the club have come together and they have fully paid for that.
"We have the pool now so we are looking to the next stage. We want to secure some land, we want to go through the planning process but obviously we would need significant funding from the Government to help us make this happen".
Mr Whelan said that as the club does not have a permanent site yet, or 30% of the building costs, they do not currently meet the criteria for funding under the Government's Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) so they are looking at other options, including regional development funds and sponsorship.
The long-established club has over 200 competitive swimmers and 135 children on its Learn to Swim programme, with a waiting list of up to 18 months.
Swim Ireland estimates that some half a million children missed out on the opportunity to learn to swim during Covid.
Mr Whelan said they have six club members on the national pathways programme for elite swimmers who have to travel to the University of Limerick to train in a 50m pool twice weekly.
"The reality is if you want to perform in swimming at the top echelons you have to have regular access to a 50m pool.
"Cork swimmers, at the moment, need to travel to Limerick or Dublin for that. Having a facility like this in Cork would be a gamechanger and give them that extra facility to achieve those high goals".
Laura Switzer, whose two sons Noah and Andy swim competitively for the club, said a 50m pool in Cork would "be amazing".
The club's competitive swimmers currently train 14 hours a week in the 25m pool at the Mayfield Sports Complex in Cork city, which opened in the early 1970s.
"We just decided to go for it, we were able to raise the funds to buy the pool. There is a saying 'if built it, they will come', and we have no doubt once this pool gets built, it will be full and it will be utilized. It might not be next year, it could be a few years down the line but I think it will be worth it for the people of Cork".
Her son, 16-year-old Noah, who is on the Swim Ireland's national pathway for elite swimmers, agrees.
"Training here the lanes are twice as short, twice as small, there are twice as many people in the lanes, it is just tougher".
Swim Ireland welcomed their ambition.
Director of Operations Mary McMorrow described it as "real out of the box thinking", and she said that while there is no fund open (for grant aid) at the moment, "it's not that there won't be".
"Perhaps there is an opportunity for a company to sponsor such a building", she said.
Recently, Swim Ireland undertook a study of the country's public and private swimming facilities to inform discussions around the development of the sport.
Due to be published in the near future, it will highlight the geographical spread of facilities highlighting areas without ready access to swimming pools.
Separately, the Department of Sport is due to publish its long awaited National Strategy report on swimming this month.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
