Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have outlined the steps the Minister has taken to reduce the burden on families imposed by the costs of textbooks. There are two key elements to the plan to reduce costs: to encourage schools to take up the book rental schemes and to make parents aware of how to play a part in establishing such schemes in their own schools, and to secure the agreement of the Irish Educational Publishers' Association to sign up to the voluntary code of practice. The Minister has been forthright in saying he fully intends to see the association implement that code of practice and if it does not, the currently voluntary nature of the code of practice may become more mandatory.

I do not know if it is possible to retain copyright after putting an examination paper into the public domain. It would be an interesting idea and I will have a look at it. If we look at the options available to schools and boards of management, once the examination papers are in the public domain, there is nothing to prevent the students from photocopying them and binding them for future use. There is no obligation upon parents to go into a shop and buy a book like that. With some ingenuity such an expense could be avoided by schools in the future.

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