Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator McGahon's proposal to invite EU Commissioner Ms Mairead McGuinness to the House to discuss the sanctions. I am sure the Commissioner, who is from Ireland, would be very happy to address the Seanad on the mechanisms and methodologies being used to impose sanctions on Russia. Hopefully, we will see uniformity across Europe and the world in the imposition of these sanctions. It would be a very interesting discussion to have if the Commissioner was prepared to make herself available.

Today is World Book Day, as colleagues have said. Books are important for people developing their knowledge, even from a later perspective. The happiness and the opportunities that books give people are wonderful. However, many people cannot read books, including people who are visually impaired or who have print disabilities. The Marrakesh Treaty, which was passed a number of years ago, deals with copyright issues for books being transformed into digital formats that can be accessed by people with print disabilities. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland, NCBI, is the agent in this country tasked with the responsibility of producing books in digital format, not just for blind and visually impaired people, but also people who might suffer from dyslexia and other conditions. Government funding in this area is important because access to print material is critical. Let us imagine a library where 90% of the shelves are empty because books are not available. That is a library one would not be inclined to go into. Unfortunately, 90% of the books in the world are not available in digital form and cannot be accessed through audio, Braille or other forms of digital transposition. We have a lot of work to do in this area because 100% of books should be available to everybody. Nobody should have their choices limited simply because books are not available in the format they would use to read them. It is a point worth noting and is something of which we should all be aware. It is so important to make resources available to turn the 10% into 100%.