The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation has indicated he does not yet consider the sport of swimming provides a safe environment for children and young adults because of the way it is administered.
In an interview on RTE's Late Late Show, Dr McDaid called on parents to become members of Swim Ireland and to change the officer board by voting as delegates at the organisation's annual general meetings.
He said Swim Ireland was still burdened with "antiquated rules" and the "only leverage" he had over it and other swimming organisations was funding. Some of Swim Ireland's rules, such as the rule entitling all past presidents to vote, "go back over a hundred years".
He expressed frustration that it took the swimming organisation 90 days to call an extraordinary general meeting. "I told them that it takes me six days to bring a memo to Cabinet", he said.
Mr McDaid said he was frustrated that at the last egm of the swimming organisation, there were positions for which there was only one candidate. People would then confront him about the fact that the "same old faces" were running the sport of swimming.
"There's nothing to stop the parents of this country spending a fiver or a tenner to become members of the organisation. They can then go forward as delegates." He said he wanted "to try and eradicate" the "perception in swimming . . . that there was a small group of people there who were investigating themselves and finding themselves innocent".
He expressed dissatisfaction that the State was providing 85 per cent of the funding for the swimming. Participants in the sport "tend to be the well-heeled, if I can use that type of word".
"I don't see the reason why any one sport has to have three national governing bodies running it. You've been trying to come together for the last 15 years . . . and in that period of time the Berlin Wall has come down, the Good Friday Agreement has been signed and the Rolling Stones have become grandfathers".
The Minister said that he would have "no hesitation" in restoring full funding to swimming as soon as he felt it was "a safe place again for young people and young children".
