Portmarnock pool closed indefinitely due to problems with its roof

The receptionist broke the bad news to a young girl while Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” boomed through the halls of the Pormarnock Sports and Leisure Club.

Their swimming pool was closed, he told the teenager as she approached the desk on Tuesday afternoon.

It had been closed since 13 March due to an unspecified maintenance concern with its roof, said the centre’s website.

But, after engaging with an engineering firm, the centre decided that it would need to remain out of bounds through the summer while they confirmed the full scope of works, secured funding and repaired it, the statement said.

While the closure is planned to be temporary, it has heavily impacted the local area, says Sarah Keegan, the secretary of Portmarnock Swim Club. “We’ve been displaced because of it.”

In the last two weeks, their club has had to hop between a lot of different pools around Fingal, she says. “The National Aquatic Centre. ALSAA. Other clubs have let us come in and train a little bit.”

Many groups are affected. Local schools, the Portmarnock Triathlon Club, adult swimmers, and people doing aqua aerobics, she says. “It’s tough enough because there’s, like, a shortage of space overall.”

Indeed, the closure of the not-for-profit pool has been felt particularly acutely because it comes after Dublin City Council’s Coolock swimming pool’s roof was damaged in Storm Darragh December 2024, leading to that pool’s – probably permanent – closure.

There are only 10 swimming pools in Fingal, none of which are publicly owned, said Fingal County Council’s sports facility audit, published last April.

Currently, the council is developing its first public pool in Balbriggan for an estimated €11 million.

It’s vitally important that the council invests in new pools in areas like Balbriggan and Swords, said Labour Councillor Brian McDonagh on Friday. “We should also be supporting the leisure centre in Portmarnock, because the cost of keeping the centre open is vastly lower than the investment required to open a new pool.”

A spokesperson for Pormarnock Sports and Leisure Club (PSLC) said on Tuesday they are currently working with local and national government representatives to help get the pool re-opened as soon as possible.

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council said they are aware of the maintenance issues at the centre, and officials are engaging with the centre to arrange a meeting to explore appropriate next steps.

But, a spokesperson for the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport said on Monday that they hope the centre’s own commercial insurance would cover the cost of restoring the roof.

Funding streams

Before it closed, many locals had assumed the club’s pool was publicly owned, Fianna Fáil Councillor Cathal Haughey said on Monday morning. “It’s open and accessible. You don’t have to be a member to go there. Lots of schools learn there.”

The pool had been the closest thing to a public pool in Portmarnock, Labour TD Duncan Smith said in the Dáil on 24 March. “Now, due to extensive works needed for that pool roof, the pool is closed for the indefinite future.”

It is threatening jobs and the viability of the centre, he said, telling Taoiseach Micheál Martin that the Department of Sport needs to assist in re-opening the facility.

According to the centre’s own statement on the closure, nearly 50 percent of their staff had been affected, “reflecting the scale of pool operations”.

They need funding, Smith said in the Dáil. “There’s no local authority funding stream anymore for pools from government, but there needs to be an investment in the repair of the roof.”

Martin, a Fianna Fáil TD, said he would talk to the Fianna Fáil TD for Fingal East, Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien about this matter. “But, we’ll see what can be done in respect of the roof.”

As part of Smith’s efforts, the Labour Party launched a petition on its website asking the government to find the funding and to make a pop-up pool available during the summer months to protect the jobs of the PSLC staff.

The government has a fund for the repair of swimming pools, said Labour Councillor McDonagh on Friday. “It’s currently not open. But the government need to open it and make a substantial amount of an investment in this swimming pool.”

When asked about this fund, a spokesperson for the Department of Sports said the Community Sports Facilities Fund is the primary means of providing Government funding to sport and community organisations at local, regional and national level throughout the country.

Portmarnock Sports and Leisure Centre has, under this fund (formerly the Sports Capital and Equipment Programme), been allocated a total of €765,133 since 2006, they said.

But, the spokesperson said, it is hoped that a sporting facility’s own commercial insurance can cover the costs of such works. “Adequate insurance for facilities is a condition of capital funding granted by the department”.

Keep them in the water

Fingal’s sports audit found that, out of the 10 swimming pools in the county, eight are in Dublin 15 and Swords.

One is in Malahide, and the other is in Portmarnock, it said, noting that some locals also use the Trinity Sports and Leisure Centre in Clongriffin, which is in the Dublin City Council area.

The pool in Portmarnock drew locals from outside the coastal town, McDonagh said. “It’s really from all over Fingal that people use it. Rush, Lusk, Swords, Donabate, Kinseally. We’ve an expanding population and we don’t have sufficient pools there.”

That audit found that Portmarnock’s centre met a lot of people’s needs, he said. “But that’s now closed. If that was meeting capacity, it needs to be invested in.”

All of the local schools used it, said Haughey, the Fianna Fáíl councillor. “Those have all been cancelled now, and obviously swimming is a life-saving skill, so unless it is reopened, I don’t know where all those schools are gonna go.”

Really, until the repairs are done or a temporary pool can be put in place, groups like the Portmarnock Swim Club are relying on a lot of different facilities and clubs for support, says Keegan, the club’s secretary. 

They’ve talked to almost 18 different pools across Dublin, she said. “We’ve been shopping around. We’ll go anywhere.”

That has meant a few very early mornings and random time slots, she says. “Our whole goal is to keep them in the water.”