Independent bookstore owner in appeal to Helen McEntee
A local independent bookstore owner has appealed to the new Minister for Education, Helen McEntee, to sit down with their representative association for feedback on the scheme and take on board suggestions on how the scheme can be made better for everyone.
Antonia Daly, who runs Antonia's Bookstore in Trim, congratulated Minister McEntee on her appointment as Education Minister and said she hopes that once she is settled in to the role, that she will meet with Bookselling Ireland for feedback on the scheme and to listen to their suggestions.
"We are totally for the scheme and think it is a brilliant scheme. It is the implementation of it that we have issues with," said Antonia.
"We would like Minister McEntee to sit down with Bookselling Ireland and listen to our feedback on where the problems are and our suggestions to improve it and make it work better for everyone. We also think she should meet with the teachers unions on this as it involves a lot of extra work for teachers also.
"We think we can make it work better but we need the Deparment of Education to take on board the suggestions we want to make".
Last week's Meath Chronicle reported on the negative impact the school book scheme was having on independent bookstores who are struggling to compete with larger companies,with footfall also suffering due to parents no longer coming in with their booklists.
Antonia Daly who has been in business at Navangate, Trim, since 2005, spoke of the volume of work involved in putting together quotes for primary schools, while she explained that the tender process for secondary school books is so complicated that it essentially excludes smaller bookshops.
“Schools have to get three quotes. As a sole trader, I didn't have a day off in six months. I did so many quotes but for every 50 quotes you did, you might get four schools.
“At secondary level, it is even more complicated. That has to go to tender so that kind of eliminates small book shops because the tendering process is so complicated. There is so much work and they have a small amount of staff.”
She also said the bigger picture for booksellers is they are missing out on children and parents getting their first introduction to their shop and seeing what they have to offer.