Swimming Pool protests continue

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday June 15, 2010 10:12 by Paula Geraghty mspgeraghty at yahoo dot ie

Locals from Coolock, Crumlin and Sean McDermott Street continue their campaign to defend local pool services.

As the "Save Our Swimming Pool" campaign prepared for a demonstration at the city council meeting on Monday 14th June, all the political parties represented on Dublin City Council have been asked for a written commitment of support.

The campaign, which is opposed to the proposal by City Council officials to close three public swimming pools, demonstrated outside City Hall, Dame Street Monday 14th June. A number of motions and questions relating to the swimming pools have been put forward by a number of City Councillors for this meeting. The original intention had been to close the pools in Sean MacDermott Street, Coolock and Crumlin in December last year, but this was prevented by a strong campaign by local community organisations and user groups. Currently, the 27th of August has been named as the date for closure. While there have been positive indications that this closure date can be further extended, the campaign is determined not to lose momentum until the future of the pools is fully secured and guaranteed.

According to Joe Mooney, a spokesperson for the campaign: "The campaign by the community has been very successful so far. Without this strong reaction from local residents the three pools would be closed already. While we welcome the positive comments we have heard recently from City Council officials , we will continue with our activities until we are satisfied that the threat of closure has been lifted forever." He continued: "Our immediate goal is to ensure that the planned closure in August does not take place, and the pool remains open for the remainder of the year. Once this is secured, it is essential that the necessary finances to operate the pool are provided in every city council budget in the future."

A series of four public meetings in the North Inner City ended this week, with the final meeting taking place in the Sheriff Street/North Wall area. This was addressed by Gerry Fay of the North Wall Community Association, and Mark Candon, principal of St. Laurence O'Tooles school , one of the user groups that would suffer badly from the closure of Sean MacDermott street pool. At all four meetings, it was stressed that a clear commitment was needed not only from the local elected political representatives, but also from their parties that they would support the pools.

Each party has now being contacted by the campaign, and have been asked to provide a written guarantee that their party members will never vote for a city council budget that does not contain the finances necessary to operate the three public swimming pools. We are currently waiting for these guarantees, and will issue further details as appropriate.

According to Sian Muldowney, a spokesperson for the campaign: "Thankfully, neither the City Manager or officials can make the final decision to close these pools, or they would be long gone by now. The decision to close down the public swimming pools can only be acted on if voted on by a majority of elected councillors." She continued: "While all the local representatives have pledged their support to the campaign, it is important that they ensure that their party colleagues will always vote in the correct manner too. We are now waiting for a written pledge from all the parties that they will not vote in favour of any city council budget that does not provide finances for our swimming pools."

Caption: Video Id: YJh5R1smz6c Type: Youtube Video
Locals continue to defend local services