THE NATIONAL Aquatic Centre is “grossly underused” and may be “grossly mismanaged”, the Dáil has heard as the centre’s €1 million annual subsidy was criticised.

Fine Gael sports spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell questioned the subsidy. She had visited the centre and there were only about 30 people there at peak time.

“It is grossly underused, which makes me think it is being grossly mismanaged. There is a serious problem out at the National Aquatic Centre,” and “it has the potential to become a black hole”.

Minister for Sport Martin Cullen conceded the centre had “an unhappy history”, but the group now running it had done a “remarkable job”, doubling the numbers of users from 350,000 to more than 700,000.

Defending the subsidy, he said a “benchmarking exercise” last year, comparing the centre with similar facilities around the world, recommended the subvention. A model of “best international practice” was used forecasting trade for the next five years and it identified the need for an annual subsidy.

However, Ms Mitchell said the centre got a subsidy of €1.8 million in 2007, €1 million last year and had an unpaid rates bill of €600,000.

The centre “was built on the basis in the PricewaterhouseCoopers feasibility study that there would be an operating profit of between €500,000 and just over €2 million annually”. She asked if it would be “sued for the bad advice given, or is there any comeback now that we have built this facility”.

Mr Cullen said a similar facility in Australia had a state subsidy of €2 million a year. With €1million, “the facility is very much at the lower end of the scale” because the leisure centre was generating income. “The new group has done a remarkable job in reducing energy costs and that is reflected in the decreasing subsidy.”