Councillor submits motion to make Ballinlough swimming pool Olympic size

Just weeks after a Cork swimming club unveiled plans to build an Olympic size pool on the outskirts of the city, Cork City Council is to consider a proposal from a newly elected councillor to extend to 50m the Gus Healy Pool in Ballinlough.

According to Peter Horgan, the Labour Party councillor in Cork City South East, the Ballinlough pool is “long overdue an upgrade”.

“It is in the ownership of the local authority and services a large number of schools and clubs in the immediate area.

“It deserves to be state of the art,” said Mr Horgan.

“The National Swimming Strategy [published last week] underpins the need to expand this pool to Olympic size.”

He said the plans unveiled by Dolphin Swimming Club following their purchase of a 50m pool in modular form that had been in use at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 should be supported.

He said that development as well as the proposed upgrade of the Gus Healy Pool and the Cork Lido project would send a strong signal of Cork’s commitment to sporting participation if they were realised.

“If we are serious about competing in Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and other international galas we need a better swimming pool set up here in the Ballinlough-Douglas area, which is locally supported.

“It is critical to encourage active lifestyles at all ages too, along with socialisation across generations.

“So many people raise this issue with me.

“We need a proper pool for our community.”

The motion to upgrade the pool will be discussed when the council returns in September after its august recess.

It urges the council to “seek central funding to enhance, expand and promote swimming in the south side of the city through a redevelopment of the Gus Healy Swimming Pool which will consider, among other elements, that it be Olympic sized”.

Mr Horgan said that while he had been proposing an upgrade of the Gus Healy Pool since well before the election in June, he was encouraged by the comments of Olympic 800m champion Daniel Wiffen at the launch of the National Swimming Strategy calling for more 50m pools to be developed in Ireland.