Repairing the swimming pool in the Curragh Camp, Co Kildare, will cost about £2 million and will take up to nine months to complete, according to the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith.

He assured Mr Jack Wall (Lab, Kildare South) that all the schools that used to use the pool in the past could do so once it was repaired. He wanted to give an "absolute guarantee to the public at large" about this because it was taxpayers' money that was being used to refurbish the pool, closed for safety reasons.

The Minister said he had never felt under as much pressure as with this issue about reopening the Curragh Camp pool. There were no fewer than 11 questions from deputies, and he was also under pressure from "a very important fellow in the constituency with a lot of money", the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.

Mr Smith said the Defence Forces did not have the engineering capacity to do the job themselves. "The process of drawing up the technical documents on which the eventual works contract will be based is now in progress. Because of the specialist nature of the facilities the engagement of external technical expertise will be necessary and steps are being taken to secure that assistance."