Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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655. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a rental book scheme will be put in place for every school; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29707/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The previous Minister launched new "Guidelines for Developing Textbook Rental Schemes in Schools" on the 28th January 2013. These Guidelines provide practical advice to primary and post-primary schools on how rental schemes can be established and operated. The aim of the Guidelines is to help as many schools as possible to start such book rental programmes.Schools which already have book rental schemes can save parents up to 80% of the cost of buying new books.A special "Guide for Parents" was also published, to inform them of how the schemes operate and how parents can help schools to establish and run them.

The National Parents' Council surveyed the views of their members in relation to currently operating book rental schemes.Parents have reported that where book rental schemes operate, they are open to all parents in 95% of cases, and that the cost per child is under €40 per year in a considerable majority of schools. Perhaps most tellingly, the survey has found that 93% of parents believe that book rental schemes help with the costs of educating a child.

Budget 2014 provided funding of €5 million per annum for three years to support the establishment of book rental schemes in primary schools that did not operate such schemes. DEIS schools will receive €150 per child and non-DEIS schools will receive €100 per child in seed capital to establish book rental schemes. The schools which qualified for funding under this scheme received 70% of their funding in 2014 and received the remaining 30% in May 2015.

As previously announced primary schools that were operating book rental schemes prior to 2014 will also benefit from this funding. These schools will receive €18 per pupil in mainstream schools and €20 per pupil in DEIS schools over two year period or €7 or €8 per pupil in 2015 and €11 or €12 in 2016.Every primary school has now been given the opportunity to benefit from the funding secured for the School Book Rental Scheme.

My Department also provides €15m annually on book grants for all schools, which can be used for the maintenance and upkeep of book rental stock.

The Department gathers information from schools as to whether they operate book rental schemes. The most recent figures available at primary level indicate that 94% of primary schools operate a book rental scheme. The most recent figures available at second level indicate that 68% of second level schools operate book rental schemes.

Ensuring that book rental schemes are available to all parents must therefore clearly be our aim.As I have stated every primary school has been given the opportunity to benefit from the funding secured for the School Book Rental Scheme and I would urge the remaining second level schools to set up book rental schemes.