Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, to do more to tackle the rising back to school costs for families.<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD\u2019s comments come after the release of the annual Irish League of Credit Union (ILCU) school survey which revealed that one-third of those surveyed were getting into debt to meet rising back to school costs.<\/p>\n
Teachta Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year the ILCU\u2019s \u2018School Costs Survey\u2019 revealed that a whopping one-third of parents surveyed are getting into debt to meet back to school costs. This is a significant and alarming rise in the number of parents facing this challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorryingly the report also shows increasing numbers of families are turning to legal and illegal moneylenders in an effort to cope with unmanageable back to school costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpdated and new curriculum books, school uniforms, shoes, writing materials, journals and voluntary contributions all add up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe survey suggests that the average back to school cost for a single primary school child is now \u20ac999 and \u20ac1379 for a child in secondary school.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies can often find these costs further compounded by other rises in the costs of living.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasingly for many parents this time of year is one of worry and stress, as they face the prospect of the challenging costs associated with children returning to school in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition many families on lower incomes are still waiting on confirmation or receipt of the Back to School Allowance.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cBack to school costs have unfortunately become an annual conversation in many Irish homes and this is set to continue until the Government implements positive and proactive supports for struggling families. The conversation shouldn\u2019t end in September when the students return to school.<\/p>\n
\u201cBudget 2019 affords the opportunity to do this and I am calling on Minister Bruton to increase the Back to School Clothing and Footwear allowance for both primary and secondary School children in the budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable that families have to go into debt solely to meet the costs of sending their children to school. This can and does involve legal and illegal moneylenders who charge huge exorbitant rates on return.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe annual ILCU survey reinforces the hidden picture of\u00a0 Ireland in which people are increasingly going into debt, back to school costs are rising and the financial burden from the recession and Government imposed austerity is still impacting on many our citizens.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, to do more to tackle the rising back to school costs for families. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD\u2019s comments come after the release of the annual Irish League of Credit Union (ILCU) school survey which revealed that one-third of those surveyed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[191,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-back-to-school","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3555,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions\/3555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}