Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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227. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the definition of a book rental scheme for the purposes of making payments under the seed capital grant scheme; the criteria his Department uses to decide when the provision of books by a school to its pupils is a book rental scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15364/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Budget 2014 announced that additional funding was provided to the Department which involved an investment of €15 million to support the establishment of book rental schemes in primary schools that do not currently operate them. With the limited funding available, I believe that targeting this funding to make sure that every parent in Ireland has access to some level of a book rental scheme was the greatest good that could be achieved. The Primary School Census 2011, 2012 and 2013 included a question which asked a school to indicate if they operate a textbook rental or loan scheme to enable pupils and parents to rent or borrow some or all of the main textbooks used in the school. Schools that indicated that they did not operate a book rental or loan scheme in the Primary School Census in 2013 were contacted in early 2014 to advise them of the application process.