‘School costs like these really do bite’

VALERIE McDERMOTT and her husband Donal O’Carroll are an average middle-income couple.

Their older son Conor is about to start first class and his brother Eoin is aged just two, but already the looming cost of two children at school is a daunting prospect. Some of the basic bills they face for the school year ahead include:

* Shoes and runners (two pairs of each) — €120 .