Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party and I want to work with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education on the issue of back-to-school costs. The Taoiseach will agree that this topic comes up every September and then goes away again. I am concerned that the book publisher, Folens, has now acquired the teacher training institution, Hibernia College. An educational book entity, which exists for commercial interests, is now effectively the largest provider of teachers for the education system. In Northern Ireland, schoolbooks are free; in the Republic, they are not. In fairness, two budgets ago the Taoiseach's Department introduced a scheme to provide 50 schools with free schoolbooks. This was then extended to 100 schools. Working with the Opposition, and with the best of goodwill, we could, for €20 million, which is not a large sum in the overall budget to be presented shortly, provide free schoolbooks for every child in the Republic, just as they are provided in Northern Ireland. Can we take away the conversations about money at the school gates and replace them with conversations about education? The Taoiseach will appreciate that far too many of the conversations teachers and principals have with parents are about money rather than education. I ask him to prioritise that issue in the budgetary cycle.

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