Mr. Geoffrey Browne:

I am grateful for the opportunity to present to the committee this morning. The National Parents Council post-primary, NPCpp, applauds the current ambition of the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and the Department of Education and Skills to make Ireland’s education and training service the best in Europe by 2026, and we assure those involved of our support towards achieving this.

While our students can avail of some deserved relaxation and holiday time during the summer, the early weeks of July pass very quickly for parents as the planning to meet the expenditure required to see their children through school must be addressed. The end of August is an expensive time for all parents with children in education, and the costs of uniforms, books, annual voluntary contributions and the many other educational expenses to be covered loom large for all families. What aspires to be our national free education system is, as it currently operates, sadly far from free. The costs for parents and families continue to create a most stressful experience throughout the year but particularly at the end of summer when a new school year looms.

The costs involved in attending school have become one of the biggest worries for parents at back-to-school time. The survey conducted by our colleagues in the Irish League of Credit Unions confirms that 36% of families will end up in debt to meet these costs and 15% will cut their spending on food to pay them. Every year, the same items top the list of back-to-school costs, and the NPCpp continues to highlight them. The cost of books stubbornly remains the most expensive single item, despite most schools endeavouring to offer book rental or similar schemes. The ongoing so-called new edition scenario, together with one use only workbooks, leads to families being unable to utilise older siblings' books. This must be addressed by the authorities with publishers and suppliers.

While we appreciate that some limited success has resulted from the efforts to reduce the cost of school uniforms, this has almost been fully offset by the rising cost of gym gear. The increasing cost of sports kits together with the continually high charge for extracurricular activities are also of particular concern. We attended a recent Oireachtas joint committee meeting on childhood obesity at which all parties were anxious to see efforts to promote healthy exercise and activities among our youth. We suggest that given the current national concern for the health and welfare of our children and the drive to have our teenagers become active away from TV and Internet screens and rooms inside their home, extracurricular activities at school must be a priority. They should be supported and funded as such.

The reduction and withdrawal of funding by the Department of Education and Skills, especially following the near collapse of the Irish economy almost a decade ago, have led to insufficient funding of many activities in our schools. Costs to maintain the fabric and function of our schools, along with most of the holistic aspects of educating our children through extracurricular activities, have been borne not by the Department but directly by parents. Ever-increasing so-called voluntary contributions are in most cases no longer voluntary. The NPCpp consistently and frequently receives calls from distraught parents reporting that their children have been denied lockers at school, not allowed to participate in transition year activities or some other school activity or have been similarly penalised because their parents were unable to pay the voluntary contribution.