Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Irish school libraries are underfunded, under-resourced and are falling short international standards. The Department of Education only funds 4% of school libraries. This morning I was in my local Mercy Secondary School. It is a DEIS school where parents fundraise for the library but there is no librarian to bring this to life. Funding school libraries is the best way to ensure access to reading and books and make sure every young person has the best start in life. Currently, only 30 DEIS schools are part of the junior certificate school programme demonstration library project. That is 30 out of 235 DEIS schools. When will the other 200-odd DEIS schools get a funded library and a funded librarian so that we can get up to international standards again?

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