Minister must try harder - Back-to-school costs

AS night follows day, this is the time of year that gnawing worries about the cost of children going back to school invariably spoil the summer holidays, such as they are, of cash-strapped parents. 

The appalling spectre of having to borrow from unscrupulous moneylenders begins to eat into the minds of people already weighed down by debt, knowing they will have to pay through the nose to meet exorbitant interest rates.

Worryingly the Irish League of Credit Unions found that between the cost of uniforms and books, parents will spend around €400 for each child this September. With austerity still grinding many vulnerable people down, despite all the talk about economic recovery, that figure represents a lot of money for families struggling to put food on the table. Researchers estimate that almost one in three parents usually end in debt simply to cover back-to-school costs of around €166 for primary school children and some €258 for students at secondary level.