Library still a closed book
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WHAT a great idea. And what a credit to the people of Rush, Co Dublin, and the Fingal County Council. They saved the 18th-century St Maur's Church from demolition and converted it into a library, with 20,000 books and 3,000 audio-visual items.
The building has been compared with the reconstructed O2 in Dublin and the Wexford Opera House, and nominated for a world architecture award.
Just one snag. The people of Rush, and visitors from farther afield, cannot read the books or use the audio-visual material. The building is not open. It needs eight staff, and it has none because of the public service recruitment embargo. So it remains closed.
To do the council justice, it is looking about for employees who could be redeployed. One might think that under-employed workers in other areas would eagerly seek redeployment to what a council spokesperson calls "this wonderful new facility". But months have gone by without palpable progress.
The same spokesperson says that redeployment "is being planned". Strange though it might seem in Ireland, there are plenty of countries -- some not far away -- where the planning would have taken place before, not after, the building was ready.
No doubt staff will be found, and no doubt the library will open to well-deserved acclaim. But it really is a shame that this delightful enterprise should be spoiled by the public frustration caused by this bureaucratic blip.
