Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 June 2024
308. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Education if she will issue exceptional funding to a school (details supplied) given the increased strain in trying to meet the costs associated with the shortfall of the schoolbooks grant; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25123/24]
View answerIn Budget 2024 over €47 million was allocated to continue implementation of the schoolbooks scheme at primary level. On the 8th May I announced details of year 2 of the Primary Schoolbooks Scheme which provides at a minimum free schoolbooks, workbooks, and copybooks to pupils in recognised primary and special schools. More than 555,000 pupils enrolled in approximately 3,230 primary schools, including over 130 special schools will continue to benefit from this scheme.
As outlined in the guidance published in 2023, the schoolbook grant for 2023 was calculated based on validated September 2022 enrolment figures. The guidance was informed by the engagements with all relevant stakeholders.
Funding for Exceptional Cases as outlined in the guidance catered for schools who may have received a number of pupils after 30th September. My Department received correspondence from a small number of primary schools over the course of the year, requesting additional funding where a significant increase in enrolments had occurred and the school could not meet the costs of the books from within the original funding allocation.
Those schools were contacted and the Department requests for exceptional case funding were considered on a case-by-case basis. I can confirm that correspondence was received by this school in late 2023, but the Department did not receive a response from the school following a request for additional information. As such my Department was not in a position to finalise processing of the application. Officials from my Department will make further contact with this school to clarify the position.
Revised guidance for the 2024/25 school year was published on my Department’s website at www.gov.ie/schoolbookschemes and has issued to schools.There is an exceptional circumstances funding provision under the scheme, the rules of which are outlined in Section 5.5 of the published guidance.
As part of the on-going evaluation of the scheme, all schools will be asked to provide data on their expenditure in order to inform the guidance, implementation, costs and efficiency of the scheme for future years.
