Mr. David Campbell:

I am the principal of Scoil Gráinne community national school and, like Ms Kavanagh, I have a day off school today, so I thank the committee. In listening to the previous submissions I am happily and unhappily struck by the consistency of the ideas, happily because it means we are on the right track, but unhappily because all of my good points have been stolen. Rather than labouring over the points made in our submission and parroting the previous speakers, I ask the committee's indulgence as I examine the case study of a child in school.

In the time-honoured tradition of teachers we will call the child "little Johnny". All teachers will be familiar with Johnny as he is used to train them on classroom management. He is normally the boy at the back of the class who misbehaves. However, in this situation Johnny is very good, and in fact he is a model pupil. Unfortunately, Johnny's parents have fallen into a tight spot financially. Not unlike many other people they have lost their jobs. Imagine it is August and the start of term is approaching. The school has very helpfully sent a letter to remind mammies and daddies about the children's needs for the start of term. Johnny's parents go through the list in the letter item by item. First is the book list, which involves traipsing from shop to shop ensuring all the workbooks and textbooks are bought. Enterprisingly, Johnny's mammy has been able to get them for €100, which is not too excessive. Next comes the uniform, which can be bought in only one shop. New shoes are also needed and these and the uniform amount to €150. Added to this are the schoolbag, lunchbox, pens, pencils and copies, which amount to another €50. This adds up to a considerable amount, but on top of this schools ask parents for a contribution to the pupil personal accident insurance fund and arts and for crafts money, which is another €15, and to round it off to the nearest €100 parents will probably be asked for €85 as a voluntary contribution. All of this adds up very quickly and amounts to €400.

There is nothing excessive about what has been mentioned so far.

That is not atypical of many schools. While parents may be able to avail of the back to school allowance of €150, it still leaves a substantial bill for somebody with zero income every week and it adds to pressure they do not particularly need with ideas that their child does want to be ostracised and so on. Basically, the kernel of our suggestions is that schools should prepare for the start of the year as communities rather than individuals where schools purchase everything in bulk and are, therefore, saving through economy of scale. We have started down this road in that we purchase in our school books, copybooks, workbooks, textbooks, pens, pencils, crayons and so on and we have noticed obvious benefits from that.

One of the points that has been made again and again, and it is no harm repeating it, is that VAT is payable on everything a school buys. If we did not have to pay it and the good and kind people of the Oireachtas managed to exempt schools from VAT, that would significantly and dramatically decrease the costs for all concerned because, as mentioned, one cannot examine the increasing costs for parents in isolation from the broader ecosystem of the costs of education generally.

I remind committee members of the privileged position in which they find themselves. They have at their disposal an extraordinary power of persuasion and acts as simple as asking energy companies to come in and explain what they think they can do to lower the costs for schools could do an enormous amount of good. I urge them not to underestimate their power to make a positive impact.