Swim Ireland has renewed calls for investment in public swimming pools.
A series of closures around the country has left Ireland lagging behind its European counterparts in terms of access with over half of all available pools now in hotels.
A report by Swim Ireland found there is just one public swimming pool for every 81,000 people in Ireland, compared to Scotland which has one for every 14,000 people.
It also found that 57% of Irish pools are in hotels.
Interim Chief Executive Officer of Swim Ireland Mary McMorrow said the over reliance on hotel pools was very concerning.
"That pattern on this over reliance on the hotel sector, I think it has disguised the issue that we have with swimming pool provision across the country and this is a really stark exposure of that over reliance," she said.
She said 25% of swimming pools were built before 1990 and just 2.5% of pools have been built over the last five years.
Ms McMorrow said: "We are just not keeping up with the pace. We have more people swimming. Swimming is the number two sport for people behind only personal exercise but yet we don't have enough swimming pools currently.
"And we can see that around the statistics, even around swimming lessons, 67% of the pools have waiting lists for swimming lessons."
Parents in Ireland wait months or even years to get their child into swimming lessons, a lifesaving skill.
At the public swimming pool in Seán McDermott Street in Dublin some children receive subsidised or free lessons due to an increase in Government investment.
Donna McGrath, Operations Manager at the pool, said the facility is an example of the positive impact a public swimming pool service can have.
Watch: Donna McGrath says children at 24 schools are taking lessons at the Seán McDermott Street pool
"We are seeing 10/12-year-olds coming in and actually dipping their toe in water for the first time in their lives.
"This has made a huge impact on the community. We have over 24 schools now taking lessons here with us Monday to Friday. It works out at about 600 children in total since January," she said.
Swim Ireland says modular swimming pools could be a solution as they are faster and cheaper to build with one due to open in Fingal in Dublin in 2027.
Ms McMorrow said there must be an all of Government approach to improve the problem and she called for ringfenced funding for swimming.
"We are calling for a reintroduction of the local authority swimming pool grant. Currently the only avenue for local authorities to build pools is through the large-scale infrastructure fund that's open to all sports and it is always significantly over prescribed.
"In the last round there was a total of €665 million worth of applications and only €173 million were funded," she said.
