Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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173. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if there are plans to ensure that costs to send a child to school are kept to a minimum (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19113/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I support any measures that can be taken to ensure that the costs to send a child to school are kept to a minimum. Some of the measures I have taken in this regard relate to book rental schemes and school uniforms.

My Department's approach is to support and encourage all schools to have book rental schemes. In this regard, my Department will continue to provide a book grant, amounting to some €15m, as usual to all first and second level schools, and this grant can be utilised for the purposes of updating or expanding a school's existing book rental scheme.

A sum of €5m has been made available this year to support the establishment of book rental schemes in primary schools that do not currently operate them. I recently announced that an additional €8.3m will be divided among all other primary schools that currently operate book rental schemes, in 2015 and 2016. It is my aim to ensure that every primary school in the country has a book rental scheme.

I have already expressed my concern in relation to costs incurred by parents on school uniforms. This is a matter on which I believe schools must take account of the wishes of parents. The Deputy will be aware that I requested schools to ballot parents on school uniform policy. This move was aimed at giving parents a much greater say on what if any uniforms a school should have and in turn to tackle the high costs of some uniforms.

One of the other costs for parents relates to voluntary contributions. My Department's policy is that voluntary contributions by parents are permissible provided it is made absolutely clear to parents that there is no question of compulsion to pay. The manner in which contributions are sought and collected is a matter for each school management; however their collection should be such as not to create a situation where either parents or pupils could reasonably infer that the contributions take on a compulsory character.