John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)

Following on from Senator Rabbitte's point on access for people with disabilities on our recreational walks, we did something previously with local authorities to improve access at beaches. We made beach buggies available. Perhaps it is something that we can work on through the Department. At the moment, if you do not have a powered wheelchair, it is hard to navigate those walks. A disability buggy would help people access these walks. Could the Minister work with his officials to see if something could done? We have a number of islands of the coast of Cork. I thank the Ministers for their announcement recently about investing in island communities. Programmes such as the community centre investment programme have assisted many of our island communities throughout the country.

Finally, mobile libraries are a huge asset in rural Ireland. In County Cork, we have gone to the fore and purchased a number of new mobile libraries in recent years. What is the Department's position on those? Does it and the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, intend to continue to fund mobile libraries? We are investing in many new libraries and many new libraries, which have been mentioned here today, have been invested in, refurbished and opened in our towns and villages. The mobile library offers a very worthwhile service to very remote communities. A comment on future investment in that might be appropriate. I thank the Minister and Minister of State.