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

Unfortunately, the response has been very disappointing. The Government is giving no recognition whatever to the many schools which have made a Trojan effort to get book rental schemes off the ground in the past few years. As I indicated, some schools may only have a scheme running for only one subject or year, and they will be excluded from this funding. The schools which have not yet started will be given seed capital and in many ways they will find it much easier to get a full scheme up and running. The schools which have already made an effort will be left out. That is not fair.

This is not the type of solution we heard of on budget day and which is regularly mentioned by the Minister. Unfortunately, in the past two or three years, the cost for a family of going to school has been increased under this Government. This scheme is advocated as a way for the Government to address that cost but the reality is that only a quarter of schools will benefit.

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