Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for his detailed reply. I welcome the fact that €40 million has been spent on libraries. We all agree in this House that every euro spent on libraries is a euro well spent. I start by commending everybody in my hometown of Athy where over the past number of years a former Dominican church was converted into a library. Anyone who has visited that location will see it shows the benefit of converting older buildings into a community library. If they are ever in the town, both the Minister and the Minister of State are welcome to visit that library because it is a model that could be replicated. The Minister of State mentioned converting buildings into libraries, etc., and that community library in Athy is a model that could be replicated in so many places.

My question relates to Newbridge library for which funding of €3 million was recently announced. That will be a county library for the county of Kildare with archive storage, etc., which is very important for any county. I ask again for continued support from the Minister of State's Department for that library in Newbridge, which will be a state-of-the-art library for the whole county of Kildare.

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