Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department is working with local authorities to extend the initial pilot phase of the open library service, an initiative under Opportunities for All, A Strategy for Public Libraries 2013-2017. As part of the "My Open Library" service, participating branches will open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days per week. Regular staffed hours will be complemented by unstaffed hours, thereby providing increased access for users and communities to a broad range of library services at times when access to these services and facilities would otherwise be unavailable. To be clear this involves increased access. We had this discussion last week. It is extra activity not a reduction in hours. The services will include book lending, Wi-Fi, computers and printing facilities, study spaces and community facilities. It will open up the space at night to make it available for communities to have meetings and use the library services.

The pilot is being extended to 20 or so branches on foot of the successful initial trial of the service in Tullamore, Banagher and Tubbercurry libraries. Feedback from users in these branches has been very positive to date. I heard in the debate last week that people had fears and concerns. There have been no problems in the pilot phase in the three libraries. There have been no difficulties. Staff are very happy, some have said publicly that they were delighted with the service and the increased activity. I do not really understand the issue here and why people are fighting back on this. There are other issues that people might have concerns about in libraries but this initiative is to increase the services by having additional opening hours to provide services.

The aim of the extended pilot is to gather further learning and to develop a model that may rolled-out on a mainstream basis in the longer term. We are confident that the service will continue to grow in popularity with users and communities and will be supported fully by staff in the participating branches. Accordingly, we have no plans to reconsider the introduction of the service. We plan to increase and enhance it and I encourage more local authorities to avail of it.

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