Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will respond briefly to the question on JobBridge and special needs assistants, SNAs. I have spoken publicly on the matter. JobBridge should not displace any job. That is the bottom line as far as we are concerned. The Department of Social Protection, which administers JobBridge, did remove some advertisements because they were considered to be inappropriate for schools. Extra SNAs have been allocated.

Another question was on the survey the previous Minister, Deputy Quinn, carried out on school uniforms and back-to-school costs. Another element of back-to-school costs is the book rental grant, which continues into next year and the following year. The sum of €5 million per year for three years for book rental schemes has been built into the figures. The first year has been allocated and there are two more years to go. We asked all schools to carry out the survey. We cannot force them to do so, but I have asked any parent who spoke to me on the issue to go back to the school and ask it to carry out the survey if it has not done so. To the best of my knowledge, I do not have the power to tell them they have to do it.