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

Perhaps unusually I am very aware of this issue because I have discussed it at length with the Minister, Deputy Quinn. Recently in the Dáil the Minister and I answered several questions on the operation of the scheme and we both pointed out that it was unfair but, in the context of the resources available to us, it is the most that can be done now. If more resources were available to us within Government or the Department we would have extended this support beyond those schools which did not have a scheme in place already. To a certain extent, with the limited resources available to us, we are trying to level the playing field, to bring in all the final schools that have no scheme whatsoever in operation and to support them in establishing that scheme.

We hope that in the future, when we will hopefully have more resources available to us, we will be able to go back and support those schools which took the initiative and made the commitment and effort to put in place some kind of scheme. For the moment, we have an unfair decision, but the best possible decision in light of the resources available to us. It was perhaps even more unfair to parents who had no access whatsoever to any book rental scheme and it was those, at this point in time, we sought to support but we hope to support all the others in the future when resources become available.

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