80% of qualifying families receive back-to-school cash

ABOUT 80% of families expected to qualify for help with back-to-school costs have already received the money after a Government decision to make automatic payments to most welfare recipients with children at school.

Following complaints in recent years about long delays processing applications for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance, the Department of Social Protection has taken over the running of the scheme from the HSE.

This week last year, about 72,000 of the 122,000 applications already received at that point had not yet been processed by the HSE, whose community welfare officers previously handled the claims.