Ballaghaderreen swimming pool saga -  Department says facility still set to reopen by March 

Ballaghaderreen Swimming Pool is still set to reopen by March, according to Department officials, despite a failure between an operator and the building’s owner to reach agreement on the terms of a contract.

The swimming pool facility on the Sligo Road at the former Abbeyfield Hotel, which became an Emergency Reception and Orientation Centre (EROC) in 2017, was on the verge of reopening before talks broke down last week.

In a statement Ballaghaderreen Leisure Centre said it sincerely apologised to the people of the town after both parties were “unable to reach a mutual agreement on the terms of a contract”.

“Despite best intentions and hard work, unforeseen circumstances have not made it possible for this project to proceed as planned. Thank you for your support and understanding," said the statement.

Plenty of frustration is being felt in the town at the latest news but the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth insist that the pool, which has been closed for the last two years, will still re-open in quarter one of 2025.

According to correspondence sent to local Sinn Féin TD Claire Kerrane, Department officials said that the building’s owners confirmed that an alternative operator is being sourced. The owners advised the Department that this will not impact the “Q1 opening they have previously indicated”.

When the news of the breakdown in talks on the pool’s reopening emerged last week, Deputy Kerrane said she shared the disappointment of local people and felt disheartened after two years of pushing for the reopening of the pool. She said she would persist “as I promised to”.

Local independent councillor Micheál Frain described the development as “very regrettable” but felt that the pool should be taken over and run by the community as a social enterprise, with funding assistance from the local authority.

“A pool in the town the size of Ballaghaderreen was seen as vital for the area, for families, for swimming lessons, for people in need of exercise, for rehabilitation of injuries, for arthritis, for all the different groups that were using it. Every town should have a pool.

“As long as I can remember, a swimming pool is always something that we’ve had, including the outdoor one in Lung, and we had a proposal over a protracted period to build a swimming pool, raise money for it, which hasn’t happened.

“It’s the same thing all the time, Ballaghaderreen seems to be at the butt of everything. We have applications in for a battery storage facility that is just a couple of hundred yards away from this, and we now have a proposed expansion for the EROC in the area.

“The current operators took over the hotel in 2017 and at the time we were told that it would revert back to an operational hotel for the area in a short length of time, but it hasn’t done so,” he said.

Cllr Frain called on all local Oireachtas members to help get the pool issue resolved as soon as possible.

“I’d be hopeful that we can do something. It will mean everyone working together on this project. Everyone needs to pull together to make sure no stone is left unturned to get this pool open,” he said,