Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister and hope she feels better soon, there are a lot of things going round at the minute. I will be brief as I have a Private Member's motion in the Chamber. I do not object to any of this but have one question and perhaps another related question that may fall within this side of the Department although I am not totally sure.

With regard to the library funding that is being moved - it is an appropriate place to move it to - it is a substantial amount while there are a lot of library projects around the country that local authorities are looking to progress. While I am sure the Minister would award the funding if the projects were at a stage where it could be allocated, is it the case some of the projects are stuck in planning or anything like that? The Minister gave a commitment to funding ten new library projects in the last year and a half, or so. I am particularly aware of one in my local authority area, in Mahon. There has been a long-standing demand and request. I understand the new request has not come in from the local authority and the Minister might clarify that for me. Things have not progressed to that stage but it is not the only local authority in the country. It is vitally important we invest in our libraries to ensure they are able to evolve with the changing world. Also, some of the buildings are older. There was a commitment of approximately €2.6 million for mobile libraries this year. Has that progressed? If there is a backlog in the system and some sort of constraint preventing requests coming into the Department, can we examine what that is?

I am not totally sure if Citizens Information and that side of things fall into this Department; it is probably a matter for the Department for Social Protection. Okay, I will leave that off in that case. I have no particular objection to anything here but am a bit surprised to see money related to libraries coming back, given the demand that is there. How do we bridge that gap?