Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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91. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the efforts underway to increase library membership and participation; and to provide an update on membership numbers at local authority libraries, each year over the past five years. [40662/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Investing in our library services and promoting library membership and participation are key priorities for me as Minister and this is reflected in the Public Library Strategy 2023-2027, "The Library is the Place: Information, Recreation, Inspiration". This strategy includes an action to promote library use through national and local promotional campaigns and the provision of training to library staff on marketing and communications. The following initiatives are specifically aimed at increasing library membership and participation:

• The Libraries Capital Programme, which I announced in April 2024, which will support a major investment of €22.6m in 11 state-of-the-art infrastructure projects and a further €2.6m in 12 next generation mobile library vehicles.
• Ireland Reads - a national campaign which takes place annually to promote reading in advance of the national day of reading on February 24^th . It is an initiative that is funded by Healthy Ireland and supported by public libraries and many organisations that promote literacy and the arts.
• An annual national public libraries open day, where libraries can showcase what they offer. This year’s Open Day, which was preceded by a nationwide promotional campaign, was held on September 28th and libraries hosted a wide variety of events that appealed to all ages.
• Funding of €260,000, which I approved for 2024, to support My Little Library Bag, which is an initiative under the First 5 Strategy. This initiative supports 4 and 5 year olds starting school and encourages them to join the library. In the past two years, nearly 120,000 book bags have been distributed and over 70,000 children have registered as library members or renewed their membership.