Bookselling Ireland calls on schools to use local shops for books

Bookselling Ireland — a committee of Irish members of the Booksellers Association — is urging schools to use local bookshops to source books, following the release of guidelines for the extension of the Free School Books Scheme by the Department of Education (DoE) in Ireland to include post-primary schools to Junior Cycle level.

The committee is concerned that while this will may help some parents financially, the implementation of the initiative will lead to more bookshops closing due to the loss of footfall.

According to the committee, the widely held belief when the scheme first rolled out was that schools should get books from the suppliers offering them at the lowest price. But since this is not a requirement, Bookselling Ireland is calling on the DoE to clarify other factors that schools may want to consider when selecting a supplier – including supporting local businesses such as indie bookshops as well as sustainability and the quality of services.

The committee is also calling on the government to introduce "targeted supports" in support of bookshops, including the introduction of cultural vouchers.

Bookshops have expertise in supplying schoolbooks for local schools and the committee claims that they were "instrumental in the successful rollout of the first phase of this scheme". Some bookshops have closed since the scheme was rolled out in April 2023 — with the committee claiming that all of these businesses have cited this scheme as a factor for this. 

“Bookselling Ireland members have a vast amount of knowledge and experience supplying school books and are ready and willing to share this knowledge," said Dawn Behan, chair of Bookselling Ireland. "We would urge schools to consider this when choosing a supplier for their school books. We would also appeal to government representatives to act swiftly to stem the flow of bookshop closures before it is too late.”