The national reading initiative was launched on 21 January 2000, with a budget of £2,500,000, as a one year initiative with two briefs: to raise awareness in the general public of the importance of reading and to lay the foundation for improving the quality of the teaching of reading in the formal and non-formal sectors.
The initiative was a community-wide endeavour, involving my Department collaborating with schools, libraries and voluntary community groups. Opportunity was given to local groups across all sectors to apply for funding to design, organise and run community-based projects aimed at increasing reading use and/or improving reading standards.
One of the national projects funded by the initiative was "Babies Love Books". This project involved providing every child born in 2000 with a gift pack of five quality books including guidelines for parents/carers on how best to share books with babies. An additional two Irish language books were provided to children of Irish speaking families. My Department organised the selection and purchase of the books and these books were then forwarded to the county libraries.
Each library authority undertook to manage the project at local level, taking responsibility for the storage, collation and distribution of the year's supply of packs for the relevant county. The library authorities at local level liaised with the public health centres in their areas and made local arrangements for the distribution of the book packs at the baby's nine-month developmental check up. Altogether, 60,000 packs were distributed by the libraries and health centres and I am pleased to acknowledge the great commitment given by the library and health board staff in managing this project.
I am not aware that there was a difficulty with the provision of packs to the health centre referred to in the Deputy's question. Any health centre, which has experienced a shortfall in supply, should notify their local library immediately in order that the matter may be addressed. I have made provision for funding to be provided in 2001 for the completion of all national reading initiative projects and I can assure the Deputy that any difficulties that are identified by the libraries can be considered in consultation with them.
