Mr. Sean McMahon:

I will try to deal with some of the issues raised and Mr. Mullan with deal with others. The Chairman has put her finger on the button in regard to the difficulty. My colleague across the way referred to the "noble aspiration".

My submission is very much reflective of the perspective of principals and teachers who have been in ongoing communication with the INTO. It is born of a frustration that as principals of schools, we all received a circular which simply asked whether we had a book rental scheme in our schools, whether our board of management or parents had done some fund-raising, whether we were proactive and whether our community got involved. The answer in my case and in the case of 80% of schools was "Yes". Then, having ticked that box, we found ourselves excluded from a laudable additional injection of finance into education. Our frustration is born of that.

Our frustration and what might be perceived as negativity is linked to this. The difficulty is that the scheme sought to provide national remediation in an area which should have been investigated and teased out first. I agree the laudable aspiration can be achieved and do not believe the inherent costs of doing so are enormous. Traditionally, the book rental scheme resulted from a situation in which, for a generation, particular pupils in all schools deemed necessitous were supported. Then, as society moved on, we tried to move from that to a concept whereby books would be available for all children. We need to divorce these two themes. We need a book rental scheme available to all schools, with financial support provided for it year on year. This scheme must be separated in its entirety from a scheme that is focused specifically on necessitous pupils.

I acknowledge the difficulties in terms of current fiscal realities. In an ideal world, I would like the Minister to have lots of money to divvy out, but I fully accept that is not the case. However, I suggest the Minister could, over a period, provide a cash injection towards a book rental scheme that would be available to all schools that choose to provide a scheme. Perhaps that could be a small amount, such as €20 per pupil per year. Then, as a principal, I would know that I could focus on English books one year and on maths or Irish books the next year. This would be preferable to the type of scheme proposed.

The remaining schools, as identified by Deputy O'Brien - approximately a quarter - have not decided to travel the particular road of book rental. Therefore, what we are doing is reinforcing the parents, the communities and the schools that are not part of the 80% that espoused the concept of book rental and put huge time and energy into it. This brings us to the issue of boards of management. These boards are voluntary and the book rental schemes are administered at no cost to the State. They are administered by parents, principals and boards of management. We need to compliment people on the contribution they are making in this regard. Therefore, I do not see our approach as being negative overall, but as a response to the realities we perceive - that support is inadequate, poorly focused and based on an extremely flawed perspective in regard to where the money needs to go.

I will pass over to Mr. Mullan now to deal with the questions asked regarding e-books and overall back-to-school costs.