About 1,700 families per day applying for back-to-school aid

About 1,700 families are applying every day for State supports to help with the cost of sending their children back to school.

Almost 50,000 claims have been made over and above the 115,348 homes already issued with payments of €39.3m on foot of having received, last year, the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance from the Department of Social Protection.

The department made the payments in mid-July in respect of more than 205,000 children of those families.