The Ireland Active Conference and National Quality Standard Awards brought the leisure, health and fitness sector together at The Johnstown Estate last Friday for a day that combined a clear look towards the future with recognition of the people and facilities already setting the standard.

The 2026 gathering was particularly notable for marking 25 years of the National Quality Standard, which began life as the White Flag Awards in 2001 and has developed into the principal industry-specific quality benchmark for leisure, health and fitness facilities in Ireland.

There was plenty of celebration across the day and evening, but the wider message was that the sector is becoming increasingly central to conversations around health, prevention, community participation, and the quality of people’s everyday experience of physical activity.

The conference, hosted by Damien Lawlor, ranged deliberately across those themes.

Dr Aisling Farrell of UPMC Sports Surgery Clinic made perhaps the most direct connection between the work being done in facilities around the country and the wider health agenda.

Her presentation, Movement is Medicine: Helping Ireland Move, focused on the role physical activity can play in delivering better health outcomes and on the challenge of encouraging more people to make movement part of their lives.

It is an increasingly important space for Ireland Active.

The sector represented by its members sits at the point where national ambitions around healthier living must translate into real opportunities for people to swim, exercise, train and become more active.

That role was reflected in the launch of the organisation’s new Strategic Development Plan for 2026–2029 by Ireland Active CEO Karl Dunne.

Four pillars will shape that work: Membership, Partnership, Health & Physical Activity and Standards.

The Partnership strand is particularly important in positioning the sector with a stronger collective voice, while Health & Physical Activity places a clear emphasis on helping more people to become active within their communities. Standards, meanwhile, maintains the focus on both facilities and the professional exercise workforce.

The day’s programme also brought a strong commercial dimension.

Brian Lee, founder of Freshly Chopped and TRYKA, joined Lawlor for a conversation about entrepreneurship, leadership and the realities of growing businesses.

Susan McEntegart of Creating Sparks examined the difference between simply winning attention and creating marketing that moves people to act.

That is an important distinction in a fitness market where facilities compete not simply with one another but with increasingly diverse ways consumers choose to spend their leisure time.

Charlton Clarke and Lucy Ferris of Les Mills UK picked up that changing consumer landscape in The New Rules of Fitness, looking at the expectations now shaping the relationship between customers and operators.

Pádraig O’Hora brought a very different perspective with Fractured, a personal account centred on resilience, adversity, and the challenges behind sporting performance and everyday life.

Together, the sessions gave the conference an effective breadth: health, business, marketing, people and changing consumer behaviour rather than a narrow focus on facility operation.

There was also a strong commercial presence around the programme, with 28 exhibitors showcasing products, services and technology to operators throughout the day.

25 Years of Quality

The National Quality Standard bridged the conference and the evening Awards.

The standard assesses facilities across core areas, including safety, hygiene, customer engagement, and human resources, with facilities progressing through Achieved, Exceeded, and Outstanding levels.

That makes the 25th anniversary more than simply an awards landmark.

A quarter of a century of independently assessed standards has helped professionalise how the Irish leisure sector operates and set expectations for what customers should experience when they enter a facility.

Outgoing Ireland Active Chair John Windle received a special recognition award for his contribution to the organisation and the sector, while incoming Chair Sandra Dunne addressed those gathered as Ireland Active begins its next chapter.

Community impact and sustainability were also recognised during the day.

Leisureland Galway won Sustainable Project/Initiative of the Year, while DLR Leisure Loughlinstown was named Community Project/Initiative of the Year.

Both awards point towards areas likely to feature increasingly heavily in how leisure facilities judge their wider impact.

The NQS Winners

The evening National Quality Standard Awards, hosted by Sport for Business CEO Rob Hartnett, recognised the leading performers across the country’s leisure, fitness and hotel leisure facilities.

Westpark Fitness was named Overall Leisure winner.

Dundalk Sports Centre took the Overall Fitness Award.

Arena Health Club at The Grand Hotel was named Overall Hotel Leisure winner.

West Limerick Sports Complex received the award for Most Improved Facility.

Complete Leisure was voted Supplier of the Year, recognising the importance of businesses that provide the equipment, services and expertise the facility sector depends on.

One of the evening’s most warmly received awards went to Bernadette Fitzgerald of MTU Kerry Sports Academy, named Staff Member of the Year.

Fitzgerald has worked on the Academy’s reception team for five years, following 23 years in hotel management, and was recognised particularly for the personal connection she builds with customers and visitors.

It was an appropriate reminder that while the conference spoke about strategies, standards, buildings and changing technology, the quality of a leisure facility is still ultimately experienced through people.

That perhaps provided the best summary of the full day.

Ireland Active has emerged from its 2026 Conference with a new strategy, a clearer role in the national physical activity conversation, and a sector showing increasing confidence in its contribution to health and community life.

The 25th anniversary of the National Quality Standard offered an opportunity to look backwards.

The more interesting story coming from Johnstown, though, was where the sector intends to go next.

 

 

 

 

Ireland Active is a full member of the Sport for Business Community.  If you would like to join them and see your organisation in our content, on our stages, and in the daily conversation around the commercial world of Irish Sport, email us today and let’s see what is possible.

Image Credit: Ireland Active

 

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