I'll never forget the first book I read on my own, at the age of five. 'Have You Seen My Puppy?' was about a little boy who lost his dog, hunting high and low until he found him.

I remember the anxiety I felt about whether he would be reunited with his curly-tailed puppy. I remember ducking under my father's newspaper to ask him what a word meant. I remember the feeling of achievement at making it through to the end of the book -- and also the prickle of loss.

It left me eager to read another book -- then another. It introduced me to a world outside the family and classroom. It taught me empathy. It gave me confidence with schoolwork: I could look at the pages pointed out by the teacher and grasp what she wanted us to do.

That first book was one I borrowed from the school library, and I loved it so much I asked for a copy for my birthday. Later I graduated to 'Anne of Green Gables' and 'Just William' and 'Little House on the Prairie' -- all available in the school library.

I used the town library as well, and there were books in the house -- Maurice Walsh was a fixture -- but the school facility meant books which a child might be interested in reading were right there, under your nose, every day. We talked to each other in the playground about books, we recommended favourites to each other.

The school library helped form my reading habit. If you're a reader, you probably count this pastime as one of life's most enriching pleasures. You may resent how life interferes with your good intentions to catch up on reading. Maybe you're looking forward to packing some new releases in your luggage for the summer holidays.

But spare a thought for people with limited literacy -- those for whom reading is a challenge and a source of anxiety, rather than a recreation.

If you don't learn to love books at a young age, chances are you may never develop that passion. In an ideal world, every parent would foster a reading habit in their child; unfortunately, the world is far from ideal.

Schools have been picking up the slack. An initiative to stock school libraries has been running in Ireland since the late 1960s, guaranteeing books in the life of every child in the country, regardless of social background or family circumstances.

It didn't cost a lot, at around €2m a year, but it made a difference. It meant books -- not textbooks but attractively packaged, recently-published novels and non-fiction books -- were introduced into the classroom.

After almost 40 years, the scheme has now been discontinued. There is no School Library Grant for 2009 -- the budget is gone. Not reduced but removed. Teachers and librarians expected some decrease, in view of economic circumstances, but to their dismay it has simply vanished.

The Department of Education explains it has reallocated the funds by increasing the capitation grant for schools. But teachers look at you pityingly when you suggest this will provide books. That money will go towards heating bills and day-to-day running costs, they say -- it is not ring-fenced for books.

Meanwhile the books currently stocked in school libraries will grow increasingly tatty, and the excitement of new titles will be a distant memory.

There are public libraries, of course. But some families do not use them. There are parents who don't even make their children attend school, let alone rise to anything extra-curricular like a library visit. There are households where children are left to get themselves up, dressed and breakfasted in the morning.

No doubt schools in towns and cities will organise classroom library visits, in an attempt to plug the gap, but schools in rural areas do not have easy access. Besides, there can be discipline problems associated with decanting a class of 30 or 35 primary school pupils into a public library.

Yet books are vital for a child's development. Dublin city librarian Rosemary Hetherington says: "It's important that children are surrounded by a print environment -- if there are books around them, they are more likely to pick them up and realise books are fun, and mean pleasure rather than pain. Once children gain reading confidence it improves every part of the school curriculum for them."

But one in three children in disadvantaged areas leaves school with severe literacy and numeracy problems, according to children's charity Barnardos. This statistic shames us all.

A recent Barnardos report, 'Written Out, Written Off', eloquently notes how education "can make all the difference to a child: the difference between believing in their own future and despairing of it; the difference between living in poverty and forging their own path out of it."

We are submerged in recession and everyone agrees cutbacks are inevitable, although nobody wants to feel the pain. But victimising children in underprivileged circumstances is no way to proceed -- educational cutbacks are a false economy.

Removing this funding is a retrograde step. Yet the figures involved in maintaining the scheme are tiny compared with the cost of our democratic trappings, such as ministerial cars and drivers. It has such a positive impact on children who may never see a book at home. Isn't democracy meant to be about ensuring equality of opportunity?

Imagine if there are children growing up in Ireland today who never have the opportunity to say: "I'll never forget the first book I read ... "

mdevlin@independent.ie

- MARTIN DEVLIN