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."
Speaking at the launch, Mr Byrne said the €500,000 funding was not for capital works - that is the building of swimming pools - and rather to promote the sport and encourage greater participation.
Also at the launch was Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen who said the more funding towards the sport the better.
He said the strategy was going in the right direction and it was all about inspiring the next generation of swimmers.
The Paris 2024 800m Freestyle gold medalist has said he would like to see more 50 metre pools - the kind used for most competitive swimming - in Ireland.
Mr Wiffen also said that his life has been "crazy" since his Olympic success, adding that he cannot walk down the streets without requests for selfie.
Speaking earlier, Mr Byrne said that 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 €19 million 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 and badminton centre," he added.
"And we've announced a national cricket centre of excellence as well. I think the investment in sport - and we'll see the announcements now in the coming weeks - is absolutely unprecedented."
He said that any decision on diverting money from horse and greyhounds is one that "the Government can take collectively".
He said "what I've negotiated with my colleagues for sport is absolutely unprecedented. And you're going to see the results of that in terms of new facilities and already Minister [for Finance] Jack Chambers before me launched the biggest sports capital programme ever.
"Right around the country under that programme, sports facilities are being put in place and we will almost double that in terms of the funding that we will give next month and that will result in even more facilities.
Read more: 50m pool in storage as Cork swimming club seeks site
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