School book retailers in Tipperary are waiting to hear the finer details of the government’s plan to provide free text books to all Primary pupils.
The budget announcement is expected to benefit more than half a million children nationally from next September.
Whether the scheme is administered by the Department of Education or by individual schools could have a huge bearing on local bookshops.
Deirdre O’Toole of Eason in Thurles Shopping Centre says the devil will be in the detail.
“Yes, absolutely. First of all I look at it with two hats on as I’m a parent and I’m also a book retailer. So the parent in me welcomes the decision by the government – the retailer in me would like to see how it’s going to be executed on a local level.
“Some schools at the moment are already doing book rental schemes so there is a situation there where schools are used to dealing with bookshops and buying books en-masse so that would hopefully be one option going forward.
However Deirdre says local bookshops could lose out if the Department of Education decides to source text books directly from the publishers.
“There’s so many publishers out there at the moment that it’s a big undertaking to deal with all of them.
“When a schoolbook list comes in there could be books from CJ Fallon, educate.ie, Edco, Folens, Prim-Ed, the list goes on. There’s an amount of logistics involved in pulling a school book list together.
“So it will be interesting to see how the schools approach it, how the Department approaches it and if bookshops at a local level will be involved.”
