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I HAVE ALWAYS loved the library. I remember being a child and experiencing the wonder of shelves upon shelves of books. A quiet place where I could get a card and choose any book I liked, queue up and present it to the librarian and take it home.
I’m delighted to get to experience the same thing all over again with my children. They really look forward to our trips to the library. They regularly enter the colouring competitions as well as choosing books for the week. Their interaction with the librarians is highly educational too, it’s the first thing they do entirely on their own steam.
So, you can imagine how disappointed I was to read about the staffless library trials that have taken place. Minister Simon Coveney has said that the staffless operation will only be to extend opening hours, and that staff will not be replaced. In fairness to him, he may well believe that.
The reality will most likely be very different
It will be easy for those in charge of the purse strings to compare costs between the staffed and unstaffed times. When a librarian calls in sick or takes holidays, it will be extremely tempting to save money by not covering them. When a librarian retires, it will be all too easy not to hire a replacement.
When humans are compared to technology on a purely cost basis, there will only be one winner. In times of tight budgets and competing demands on local authorities resources, the easy savings will be made. Librarians will be the low hanging fruit.
Children won’t be the only ones affected, libraries are quiet places used by many. In this fast-paced technological age where more and more of our interactions are with machines, we should be fighting to keep a refuge of such value.
My children’s children may well never get to experience the joys that we did. Librarians are an integral part of the experience. I think we will live to regret the loss of them if it comes to pass.
What we need is a thoughtful approach to technology
Blindly allowing the “Market” to dictate our path has not served us well in recent times. Technology can either set us free or imprison us. We need to set clear goals about the kind of world we want to live in. We need to value human interaction.
A seismic shift in our consciousness is required. Driverless cars could be the shift that demands action. There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the USA alone. Ireland as a whole is no stranger to the truck driving industry.
Calculating the secondary employment created in accommodation, rest stops and restaurants would be a challenge. The number of taxis, couriers and other driving jobs would easily dwarf this.
Without major changes to our entire economic system it is hard to see these job losses being absorbed. The reduction in demand for products and services as well as the large-scale defaulting on debts by those newly unemployed could see the whole house of cards come crashing down.
A problem of this magnitude needs scrutiny and planning
Yet the Government decides to pander to a European Declaration that I am sure no-one outside of officialdom has read? The Declaration of Amsterdam, which commits EU support for the introduction of driverless vehicles, may have been endorsed by Transport Ministers last April, but have you heard of it? Blindly on we go.
We are in an age of raw populism leading to a widespread rejection of expertise as well as dysfunctional governments firefighting against bad decisions like Brexit and the impending Le Pen coronation in France.
The self-proclaimed land of the free has elected an emblematic demagogue as President. We in Ireland are no exceptions. We have a do-nothing Dáil which lives up to the name. We must do better. You might argue that we have gotten away with it so far, but we cannot continue to refuse to seriously plan for our future.
Eric Nolan is the Labour Party’s Local Area Representative for Cork East. He was constituency party campaign manager for the Marriage Equality Referendum. He works as an aviation firefighter at Cork Airport and has served as a shop steward and worker director.
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Piece of shit coward. Sits in his car, shoots from his car, does a legger in his car and when he was low on fuel he pulls into a petrol station.
Happens every day in parts of America, and you don’t hear of it because the majority of them are black
Supernova – are you saying black people commit the most shootings or reports aren’t newsworthy because it’s a picture we’ve seen thousands of times?
Most of the victims are black actually but does the race matter? A crime is a crime is a crime.
This is being portrayed as a mad man shooting but it seems like more of a gangland style deal.
Drivebys happen a lot in the US. There were 733 in 2014 alone with 154 deaths.
Yeah but I’m saying if the individual was black I don’t think it would have been a big a news story I’m afraid. If a white man gets killed all hell breaks loose.
Hang on, are you saying when a black man gets killed all hell *doesn’t* break loose?
Have you been watching the news coming out of the states for the last year or so?
I dunno how this has gone international? what about all the drive bys that happen in Compton?
If it was in America this happened you would have quadruple the comments on this story.
…and blaming the NRA.
You’d have quadruple the comments if it was the US because it happens every other week in the US, often happens to kids, and it’s once in a blue moon in other countries. The last one in Germany was 2010, we’ve had a dozen HUGE ones in the US since then.
Perfectly fair game to blame the NRA since they are the second most powerful lobby group in the US, and oppose even moderate gun regulations like preventing civilians from owning military grade weapons, and preventing people from the terrorist watch list or the mentally ill buying guns. You’ll notice we, who have one of the top 5 most conservative gun regs in the world, have never had a mass shooting, and the UK has not had one since the 70s when it adopted very similar rules.
Saadi news but why is it being reported here? We have shootings all the time between rival gangs, does that make news in Germany or is there something more to this?
hopefully it was Enda and Angela
Idiot of the highest order!
Tis an ill wind that blows through Bad Windsheim this morning.
when will the killing end. we need to get rid of guns altogether.
No, don’t be ridiculous. Then Billy the Kid and the ‘Hole in the Ground Gang’, not to mention the most evil German of all time, Kaiser Wilhelm II, will have a free reign.
his getaway car low on fuel. not very Mr Brooks was he.
So so sad. This senseless violence needs to stop.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was quite a decent guy. Just a bit egotistical I suppose. Britain vilified him in the Great War for propaganda purposes, that’s all.
@Ashley Brown. He also must have thought of other’s welfare as well,, for he brought in the first European pension and welfare programs,albeit at the behest of Chancellor Otto Von Bismark, without which we might still be fighting for them even now.
—”Social programs in Germany began in the 1880s.
“In November 1881, at the direction of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm I, issued a decree stating, “those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state.”
have your say