The National Parents' Council for post-primary schools has urged online retailer schoolbooks.ie to contact customers still waiting for the delivery of books.
Thousands of children returned to school this week without the required texts because of order backlog at the company caused by a technical glitch at its warehouse.
The council said it was “appalling” that parents and children should find themselves without school books at “this late stage”.
Spokeswoman Jackie O’Callaghan appealed to the retailer to contact parents awaiting delivery of their order.
In an email sent to the company, Ms O’Callaghan said: “This is nothing more than common courtesy and best practise. The longer you refrain from communicating with people the more negativity and bad press you create. All students will be back at school by tomorrow and will need their books as and from then.”
The company claimed yesterday that the backlog had been cleared and that all outstanding orders would be delivered by yesterday evening at the latest.
It said that on Monday and early yesterday 5,800 customer orders were delivered, while a further 1,100 customers would get their books by yesterday evening.
However, several frustrated customers contacted this newspaper overnight and today to say they were still waiting for their books and were having difficulties contacting the company.
One reader wrote: “I am totally dismayed and utterly exhausted from corresponding with them by email, fax, phone and they are doing nothing about it. I ordered my books on August 15th but I still don't have them.”
One customer, who could not find any trace of his order tracking number on the company’s website, managed to cancel his order with a full refund before purchasing the required books from a different retailer.
Ms O’Callaghan said customers were perfectly within their rights to cancel orders within 30 days of purchase.
Several attempts to contact the company today proved unsuccessful.
