Sinn Féin calls for €20m fund to abolish school voluntary contributions

Calls have been made for the establishment of a €20m, ring-fenced fund to abolish school voluntary contributions.

Sinn Féin has also called for a €50 increase in the clothing and footwear allowance as part of plans to tackle the spiralling costs of sending children back to school.

The Government has already increased the back-to-school clothing and footwear grant for next month which will see the allowance rise from €100 to €125 for children aged four to 11, while the allowance will go up by €50 to €250 for children over 12.

Sinn Féin education spokesperson Kathleen Funchion said that the cost of sending a child to school has increased fourfold in recent times and up to 72% of parents feeling the back-to-school costs will be a financial burden.

“The average back to school cost for a single primary school child is €1,048 and €1,401 for a child in secondary school,” she said.

She pointed to surveys which found that 27% of parents would forgo paying bills such as rent or mortgages, electricity or gas, to meet the cost of going back to school.

The annual Irish League of Credit Unions’ survey released recently found that 29% of parents say they will get into debt funding the back-to-school spend.

The survey found that the three highest expenses are extra-curricular activities, school lunches and schoolbooks.

Ms Funchion said: “What we are looking for is to increase the back to school clothing and footwear allowance by €50, there also needs to be an increase in the capitation rates because these have been cut over the last number of years for schools and that has resulted in the increase in what they call voluntary contributions.

“We are looking for a specific €20m to be ringfenced to end voluntary contributions in schools because this is a major issue for parents.”

She said there is a lack of regulations around voluntary contributions which need to be tackled because “some schools are excellent at how they handle the situation with parents, others maybe not so well, and there is an awful lot of pressure on parents to pay and pay by a certain time of the year.”

Sinn Féin also wants to increase funding for school- book schemes to €60m over the next five years. This would see free schoolbooks become available to children across the State by 2022.

Ms Funchion added: “We also propose that the funding for school transport schemes is increased by €30m over the next five years to make the scheme more affordable and accessible to parents.

“The Government needs to start investing in our future if the financial barriers affecting children are to ever be removed,” she said.