Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

To the best of my knowledge none of my predecessors took an interest in this matter and no initiative was taken at a political level in Marlborough Street to address it. It was regarded as an issue for schools and parents, which is not a view I share. We must intervene. If a school book rental scheme is in place, the likelihood of individual teachers at post-primary level changing, for example, a geography textbook after five, six or seven years is diminished because the geography teacher would have to persuade the person who is managing the book rental scheme, let us say in the case of a school with three streams, to change 90 books at €10 or €15 per book. There is a double benefit in that parents will participate in the scheme and the likelihood of changeover and additional costs can be diminished. Elements of geography do not change as the shape of Ireland or height of Carrauntohill remain the same.

We want to find what is best practice. We do not know what is the position at primary school level. Every October a type of census letter is sent out to each primary school to gather information which, among other things, determines the allocation of teachers based on pupil numbers. We are writing separately to post-primary schools and including in the census letter a specific question on whether the school has a book rental scheme. As the Deputy will be aware, there are small and large schools in the primary sector. I hope to have the information by Christmas. I will analyse it and I hope to initiate a process to have the scheme established before the end of the academic year, in other words, before June of next year, in the primary and post-primary sectors. We are making informal inquiries as regards what can be done with regard to school uniforms. I recognise that both school books and uniforms, which were items of extreme cost in good times, are a significant burden in these challenged times.

See this speech in context