If you build it, they will come, according to Hollywood. What if they come and the doors are locked?
Malahide can boast of a brand new, state of the art public library, built at a cost of seven million euro and replacing an old structure that was but one-fifth the size. Imagine how many more books and journals and periodicals it must hold. Books that once had to be tucked away in storage could reside in the public stacks where people could have access, making more information available. New furniture of course, more comfortable chairs and more desks and better lighting. Money well spent, when a library is created.
As with any public building, there must be staff on hand to mind the place. Books would disappear out the door if no one was manning the front desk, and what would a patron do if there was no librarian and they were in need of information? What of the children after school, working on projects, requiring a librarian's assistance to locate a particular magazine or encyclopedia?
Unfortunately for the library-starved of Malahide, County Dublin, the Department of Finance has no room in its budget for more staff. All well and good for the Department of Education and the Fingal County Council to have the wherewithal to fund the construction, but the bureaucrats in Finance are sticking with their staffing cap. Rules in place for five years must be adhered to, a rule is a rule, as inflexible as an iron bar. Hence, the new library, gleaming in the late summer sun, remains shuttered.
For now, a temporary library must suffice, but the lease on that facility expires on the first of October. After that, the people of Malahide who thought they were going to have a new library will have no library at all.
The stupidity of it all....it truly boggles the mind.
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