Ms Kathleen Moran:

First, we think it is extremely important to distinguish between what the public library service can offer and what school library services can offer. I am a strong advocate for the public library service. I have worked as a library assistant and up to city librarian within the public library service and I can see all of the services that are offered there. However, there is a whole tranche of the population who do not or cannot access the services of the public library. When the junior certificate schools programme, JCSP, library project was set up, it was initially a research project and one of the things evaluated was the level of usage by students in our schools of the public library service. The project found that 4% of the students in the JCSP library project used the public library service.