Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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314. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the cost in 2017 of providing free books to all secondary and primary school students, respectively. [27490/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Matters in relation to school books are dealt with at local school level.  My Department does not therefore have data in relation to overall school book costs at primary and post-primary level.

However one estimate from publishers' sources suggested that the Irish school book market is worth approximately €60 million per annum.

Circa. 94% of primary schools and 65% of post-primary schools operate a book rental scheme.

The number of school books covered by a book rental scheme can vary significantly between schools. Such schemes also typically involve a rental fee to be paid by the parent.

There is a School Books Grant Scheme in place that provides assistance for books for students in all recognised primary and post-primary schools within the Free Education Scheme. Under this scheme, my Department provides funding of €15 million annually to all these schools.

In addition, 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. Under this additional funding, DEIS schools received €150 per child and non-DEIS schools received €100 per child in seed capital to establish book rental schemes.

Primary schools that were operating book rental schemes prior to 2014 also benefitted from this funding. These schools received €18 per pupil in mainstream schools and €20 per pupil in DEIS schools over two year period.

The Government has just launched the first Action Plan for Education aimed at making the Irish education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. This plan, which incorporates my Department's Strategy Statement as well as the Action Plan of Education outlines hundreds of actions to be implemented across 2016-2019. One of the actions as part of the plan is to strengthen the focus on reducing school costs for parents by increasing the financial support for book rental schemes, in order to reduce/eliminate school book costs for parents as resources permit.