Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

The cost of school books has been a sore issue for parents and students for generations. In today's harsh economic climate the high costs have never been more relevant. School book publishers have always defended their prices, quoting the high development costs of a new book and the high printing costs to name but two factors. Educate.ie, a subsidiary of Walsh Colour Print, entered the publishing market last year and took 70% off the cost of books of past examination papers. A total of 420 schools purchased books of examination papers from educate.ie. Straight away, Smurfit Edco and Folens were able to reduce the prices of their past examination papers by up to 30%. They did not reduce their textbook prices because there is no real competition in the marketplace. The Minister met with the publishers and they refused to lower the cost of text books. Did he ask them why they were able to reduce the cost of past examination papers when they had to compete with educate.ie? Is the Minister aware that the publishers have plans to reduce the cost of their examination papers even further again this year to force educate.ie out of the market? I urge him to ask the Competition Authority to investigate the action of Smurfit Edco and Folens in this regard.

Educate.ie has just published five new textbooks. Their books are now on book lists across the country. Even the highly prestigious Blackrock College has one of its books on the school's book list. A total of ten new titles will be added every year until the syllabus is covered. The entire syllabus will be covered over the life of this Dáil. All of the textbooks will cost €12 or less. I question why the Minister is talking to publishers that have ripped off the Irish public for generations but he will not talk to educate.ie. He refused to meet the company at the TUI conference in Tralee and he refused to meet them last month in Dublin.

Is the Minister aware that educate.ie textbooks would be cheaper than second-hand books in the proposed book rental scheme and that the State would have to pump in excess of €50 million into any meaningful book rental scheme? Why does the Minister not work with educate.ie or other such companies to save the country millions? If that were to happen pupils would be able to afford their own new books and not have to make do with ragged hand-me-downs.

Is the Minister aware that publishers add more than 1,000% onto the cost of printing a school book? Most of the printing work goes abroad. Is he also aware that publishers are one of the parties that have run the Irish printing industry into the ground? Is he further aware that €100,000 was spent on the development of educate.ie's new biology book which only costs €12 compared to €36 for a textbook by established publishers? Surely meaningful competition is the only long-term answer not pumping millions into a book rental scheme.

I previously raised the issue in April. I thank Mr. Ferghal Blaney who rightly reported the matter on the front page of the Irish Daily Mail.

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