Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)
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158. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to extend the budget 2014 school book rental scheme grant fund to schools that currently have a book rental scheme and wish to purchase new books; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18938/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I recently announced that all primary schools who currently operate a school book rental scheme will be able to benefit from the €15 million School Book Rental Scheme Fund which was secured as part of Budget 2014. Last October, I announced that the €15 million fund would be targeted specifically at primary schools who did not currently operate a book rental scheme. The Department has received applications from approximately 400 such schools to date. 531 schools who previously indicated that they did not have book loan schemes were invited to apply for the funding and of these, three quarters applied for funding.

DEIS schools will receive €150 per child and non-DEIS schools will receive €100 per child in seed capital funding over the next two years to establish book rental schemes. This will cost approximately €6.7 million and is expected to benefit more than 63,000 pupils and their families. I have now decided that the balance of the fund, some €8.3 million, will be divided among all other primary schools that currently operate book rental schemes, in 2015 and 2016. These schools are expected to receive a total of €18 per pupil or €20 in DEIS schools over those two years. This is on top of the annual book grant of €15 million which is paid to first and second level schools on a per pupil basis. This forms part of my wider agenda to tackle the high costs of going to school for parents. When I first announced this scheme which targeted only primary schools who were not operating a Book Rental Scheme, many of the other schools voiced their concern at being left out, despite the hard work of many parents and teachers to establish such schemes. I indicated that after the initial first round of funding was allocated that I would examine the scheme again. I am delighted that the Department will be able to provide an extra boost to these other schools which should allow them to expand or replace some books on their own schemes.