Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Her response highlighted the issue, which is that a system was put in place without a policy backing up what would happen for these individual schools. An overall system is needed. There is no skin off the nose of an individual school bringing on board a new school book but it is a cost for the State and for the environment. It is the job of the Government and the Department of Education, not an individual school, to ensure the system is in place. A directive is needed, rather than just asking a school to take on board the environment.There needs to be a directive that there is no change in the school books unless there is a major change in the curriculum, that schools must either recycle or send old books for reuse in Ireland or in other parts of the world, and that they must all make an annual return on the matter of how much they are spending, or the State is spending, on the provision of school books. That greater transparency, in the absence of a generalised policy, might make schools step up to the mark.

The Minister of State is correct. This is a timely discussion we are having. Let us look at it for next year but let us also factor the environment into every policy decision of the Department of Education. My issues yesterday regarding solar panels demonstrate that the Department of Education is simply not taking a forward-looking approach to how we address nature, pollution and climate.