Sport Ireland Women in Sport Funding Announcement
Swim Ireland are delighted with the announcement that we have received €110,000 funding through Sport Ireland Women in Sport Funding for 2025, the funding allocation matches the record amount invested last year with an additional €22,000 received for a project collaboration with Triathlon Ireland, Rowing Ireland, and Cycling Ireland.
Swim Ireland apply annually to Sport Ireland for Women in Sport Funding, and this supports our departments to roll out programmes across the Pillars in our own Women in Sport Action Plan: Active Participation, Coach and Officiating, Leadership and Governance, and Visibility.
We would like to thank the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan T.D., Minister for Sport and Postal Policy, Charlie McConalogue T.D., Sport Ireland CEO, Dr Úna May and all in Sport Ireland for their continued support.
In 2025 we will continue our work as laid out in our Women in Sport Action Plan 2024-2026 and we are very excited about the projects we can now get underway. We want to further build on the hugely popular Aqua Moves programme. We will introduce ‘She Swims’ which includes a new Mother/Daughter programme aimed at encouraging and empowering teenage girls and women to participate in aquatic sports and experience how Swimming, Aqua Aerobics and other aquatic activities can support females throughout the life cycle.
Earlier this year we launched our online Athlete Hub. An information portal that provides athletes with the knowledge and skills to develop inside and outside of the pool. The latest round of funding received will allow us to continue to build our content library specifically for females of all ages providing health information and learning resources to support females in and out of the pool. Not just for females, the Athlete Hub caters for male athletes also.
We are also delighted to develop a new register of female aquatic leaders. The aim of this project is to provide bespoke training, guidance, and expertise to support women in the aquatics to take on and thrive in leadership positions while also building a register of future leaders for our aquatic sports.
2025 will see us take on a new partnership with Women’s Aid. As an organisation where 55% of our members and 56% of our staffing body are female, Swim Ireland feels uniquely positioned to raise awareness and provide education and support on issues that particularly impact females in our society. Two such issues are coercive control and consent. Our project goal is twofold. We will collaborate with Women’s Aid to provide education and awareness to our female cohorts and male allies to enable them to recognise and respond to the impacts of coercive control and to understand the topic of consent and what is and is not acceptable and we will develop a campaign built around an athlete’s right to make their own choices.
Swim Ireland CEO, Sarah Keane, said: “We are delighted to have received confirmation of our funding allocation from Sport Ireland for 2025 that will allow us to continue to implement our Women in Sport Action Plan 2024-2026. We have already had some great successes in the area, with over 200 women from various sports completing our Women in Sport Leadership Programme. Our Swimmin’ Women programmes are continuously introducing new participants to swimming as a life-long activity while our Coach/Mentoring Programme encourages females into the area of coaching and supports them through their development. You can check out all the programmes available in the action plan below.’
The full Swim Ireland Women in Sport Action 2024-2026 plan is available on our website linked here.
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