Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When this announcement was made in the budget it was very much welcomed by schools across the country which struggle on a yearly basis to keep book rental schemes alive in order to ensure that students and families have as low a cost as is possible in attending school. It was with shock that many of those schools learned that funding will only be provided to a quarter of all primary schools, specifically those schools which have not yet commenced a book rental scheme. This will exclude many schools which have fund-raised with families and made cuts in other parts of the school budget in order to try to get a school book rental scheme off the ground. Those excluded will number among them schools that only started such schemes last year or which may have only set up a book rental scheme for one class or subject. Only a quarter of schools will be able to benefit, although we welcome that those which need it will be able to benefit from the process.

The Minister cannot stand over a position where schools which have already started to make an effort and sacrificed, and which now need support in order to build momentum, are being totally excluded by the way the Government is going about using this funding. I ask the Minister of State to respond on the issue. The Minister must consider how to support the schools which have made the effort. It is not enough to congratulate those schools for starting the process and the Government must support them in continuing their work rather than punishing them for taking the initiative.

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