Minister wants facilities shared

Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring, has signalled a potentially significant change to the Irish sporting landscape by warning that clubs seeking government capital funding will in future have to agree to share their facilities.

“In future there will be one astropitch per town, one facility per town,” said Ring at the launch of Swim Ireland’s ‘Swim Healthy‘ initiative. “Clubs will have to share facilities, we will have to stop all the nonsense.”

No individual organisations were mentioned but such a policy would have very practical consequences for the GAA, which has always refused to allow other sports make use of grounds and other facilities owned by units in the association.

The first round of sports capital funding in four years was unveiled by Ring last month with €26m handed out for the upgrading of facilities after the department had received more than 2,000 applications worth a total of €230m.

Gaelic games, along with soccer and rugby, may continue to claim the majority of media coverage in this country but research issued yesterday revealed that swimming has now become the most popular form of exercise among Irish adults. Research undertaken by ESRI for Swim Ireland and the Irish Sports Council has found that over 230,000 adults swim on a weekly basis and this despite the fact that there has been no nationwide campaign to promote the activity.

That is due to change, with Swim Ireland’s launch of their ‘Swim Healthy’ campaign which is aimed at educating adults about swimming and encouraging children to take to the water at the earliest possible stage.

“Swimming is the form of exercise that can be taken up at any stage in the lifecycle and can be continued for a full lifetime,” said Swim Ireland chief executive Sarah Keane.