Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

What does the Government have against library services? They were severely hit by cuts, including staff numbers, during the austerity years. Now, when there is talk about an improvement in the economy, one would think major improvements for library services would be lined up and yet more attacks are taking place under the new Government.

Library services are the responsibility of local authorities. Several areas are being brought together and placed under single management structures. The proposal is that Cavan and Monaghan, Laois and Offaly, Longford and Westmeath, Carlow and Kilkenny and Cork city and county, which is my area, be amalgamated. Incredibly, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal will be lumped together under the responsibility of one authority.

Does this herald the end of local decision-making for library services? The evidence would seem to point in that direction. There are any number of things wrong with this proposal. It means that decision-making will be remote. Will a local authority which is used to making decisions for rural areas make them for urban ones or vice versa? From what I can see, no cost-benefit analysis of this hare-brained scheme was done. The suspicion is that it will be a cover for cuts. It is a very undemocratic decision and goes against the views of local councillors and library staff. I understand the committee that planned the change did not visit the areas concerned. It certainly did not visit Cork.

It is a Topical Issue today because IMPACT members who work in the library services in the areas to which I referred are engaged in a ballot which will close on 1 July. The result will be known on 4 July. I congratulate library workers for taking a stand in defence of public services and library services in their areas. What is the current plan?

3 o’clock

First, let us scrap those hare-brained proposals and, second, let us expand the library service and reinvest in it. Let us make up for the lost decade and all the cuts implemented on the library services by the previous Fine Gael-led Government and the Fianna Fáil-led Government prior to that.

Last, but by no means least, we should recruit staff to the library services. For the past ten years those who have left have not been replaced, which places an extra burden of work on the remaining staff. I spoke to a librarian in the Cork city area for approximately half an hour. He doubts there is anyone in the city's library services under the age of 34 at the moment. There are many young people who would be very good at the job so let us expand the service, recruit staff and ditch this mad scheme the Minister of State is trying to implement at the moment.

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