Children cleaning up on First Communion

CHILDREN making their First Holy Communion are collecting up to €1,000 from friends and relatives — almost treble the amount made in the 1990s, research has revealed.

With a big family celebration now the norm for the girls and boys, the occasion resembles a mini-wedding.

In the 1970s, when oil prices rose and there was rampant inflation, children on average received €71, compared to €335 in the 1990s when the economy took off.

The research, published yesterday by Ulster Bank, also found that the average communion donations range between €20-30.

Three out of four parents, however, said they believe that children nowadays are making too much money from the occasion and would prefer if they saved it.

The bank's survey also shows that around seven out of 10 First Holy Communicants in the 1990s saved some of their money.

Ulster Bank product manager, Roisín Ryan, said children now have more access to money, with pocket money, birthdays, Christmas, Easter and school success awards and didn't feel that they had to spend it all at once.

The bank has just launched two new children's accounts that also offer rewards for regular savers.

Geraldine Graydon of the National Parents Council Primary said she recalled having to hand all her communion money to her mum to help her out with the housekeeping.

"My mother gave me a few bob back to spend on myself but it was the 1950s; we were not very well off and my mother had to go out to work," Ms Graydon recalled.

Communion money always reflected how well people were doing, she said. People are giving more because they are being paid more and more people than ever are at work.

It was up to parents, however, to strike a balance so that children realised that they had to make an effort to get the things they wanted.

"Children need to be given money in order to learn how to manage it and if they really want something very, very badly they should be encouraged to save some of the cost involved with the parents agreeing to paying the balance."

The research was conducted by RedC, on behalf of the bank, over the last two months and was based on just over 1,000 telephone interviews with people aged 15 and over.