Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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516. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the amount of funding allocated by local authority under the libraries capital programme in each of the years 2016 to 2018; the amount expended in each such year per local authority; and the 2019 allocation in tabular form. [53929/18]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides capital funding to supplement investment by local authorities in their library services. Funding is provided, for example, as a contribution towards the cost of developing library buildings, technological capacity and resources, book-stock and other areas of activity that enhance local library services.

My Department funds a Libraries Capital Programme which will invest some €29m in 19 or so projects, as well as the My Open Libraryservice, over the period 2016 to 2022. To date over €5.6m has been paid under the programme and €6.75m is available for 2019.Over the lifetime of the programme, projects are required to progress through the Department's Four Stage Approval Process. A breakdown of allocations to date by Local Authority is provided in the table below. Details for 2019 are not available at this time as funding will be allocated during the course of the year as projects progress.

In addition, I recently announced a major capital investment package of almost €8 million for digital services and facilities in public libraries. The investment will enable ICT infrastructure upgrades and new software, meeting space technologies and digital learning suites in public libraries across the country. The investment comprises €5.6 million from my Department with the balance coming from Local Authorities. This funnding is in addition to €3.4m that I provided in 2017 for self-service technology and hot-desking facilitates. Details of this funding are set out separately in the table below.