Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I dtosach báire, ba mhaith liom comhbhrón a dhéanamh le clann agus cairde Clíodhna Ní Dhroighneáin, bean óg a bhásaigh de bharr timpiste tragóideach in aice le Maigh Cuilinn ag an deireadh seachtaine. Impím ar dhaoine óga atá amuigh ansin ag tiomáint é a thógáil go réidh sa tréimhse seo go dtí an Nollaig.

It is lovely that we hear talk of Christmas markets popping up across the country and in other places, but it is also ironic in places like Galway where we have a wonderful Christmas market to find that there are many homeless people being seen for the first time sleeping in and around the shadows of that market in places such as the Fairgreen, on the promenade in Salthill, which many people would know and where they would have enjoyed a summer’s stroll. The issue was raised by COPE, the charity which deals particularly with women who suffer domestic violence and are homeless, and the lack of space it has available to it. Homelessness is not confined to Dublin. It exists across the country and we are seeing more of it in Galway where we have not seen it before. We need an urgent debate between now and Christmas. There is a housing debate going on around the legislation but a debate on the plan to deal with homelessness and the emergency situations that will crop up between now and Christmas would be very welcome.

I thank Members who attended the Staff our Libraries community group presentation earlier in the audio visual room. We will forward the information to all the others. This is a growing issue. There are very genuine concerns about the phased roll-out of staffless libraries. It is no longer a pilot programme. It seems to have been rolled out much more quickly than people had expected. We are finding that local representatives in local authorities knew very little about the roll-out of this by the management of the local authorities and chief librarians, etc. Similar moves in the library system in the United Kingdom have led to 800 libraries being closed with 9,000 jobs lost. There are 15,000 volunteers manning libraries in Britain just to keep them open.

We need a full debate on the question of staffless libraries because I do not think the full information is coming to light. My understanding is that in two of the pilot libraries in Laois-Offaly the library cards of 110 people had to be revoked because of activity that was not expected when the library was supposedly staffless. It is a big issue and is pertinent. Can we have a debate on this as soon as possible?