Sinn F\u00e9in have proposed a \u20ac140 \u2018Back to School Bonus\u2019 to be\npaid to all families to help tackle crippling back to school costs. The\nproposal is contained in a new policy document \u2018Tackling Back to School Costs\u2019\npublished by Sinn F\u00e9in this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The policy document also contains proposals to make uniforms\nmore affordable, to ensure school books are free for all children, to end\nschool reliance on so-called voluntary contributions by increasing core\ncapitation funding to schools, and reforms to ensure the school transport\nscheme is more flexible and affordable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking after the launch of the proposals Dublin South West\nSinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery summer parents are put to the pin of their collar trying to organise uniforms, shoes, books, \u2018voluntary contributions\u2019, and much more. The vast majority of parents currently get no assistance with back to school costs.<\/p>
\u201cMore than any other time of year, it has become abundantly clear that free Primary and Secondary Education for students in this state is a myth. Parents have to fork out an average of \u20ac949 to get their children ready for primary school and a whopping \u20ac1,399 to send them to secondary school. As a result of this financial burden, many children miss out on extracurricular activities or school trips. This is a deeply unfair position to put parents in. <\/p>
\u201cThese are just two examples of the overwhelming number of reasons to propose a Back to School Bonus of \u20ac140. This could take the form of a double payment of Child Benefit which should be paid to every family for each child at the start of July. This would reverse some of the major cuts inflicted on Child Benefit by successive governments made up of Fianna F\u00e1il, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, and the Greens.<\/p>
\u201cSinn F\u00e9in would also tackle the increasing use of voluntary contributions by properly funding schools. It is absurd that schools have to ask for voluntary contributions and fundraise for items as basic and fundamental as heat and light. Our proposals would eliminate these so-called voluntary contributions by restoring Capitation Grants to pre-recession levels.<\/p>
\u201cWe would also legislate to ensure that schools have to work towards an affordable uniform scheme and to increase funding to the School Books Scheme to deliver free school books for all school children.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in have proposed a \u20ac140 \u2018Back to School Bonus\u2019 to be paid to all families to help tackle crippling back to school costs. The proposal is contained in a new policy document \u2018Tackling Back to School Costs\u2019 published by Sinn F\u00e9in this week. The policy document also contains proposals to make uniforms more affordable, […]<\/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-3888","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\/3888","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=3888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3889,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions\/3889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}