Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising the issue of back to school costs, which are a serious issue for thousands of families across Ireland at this time. We have said all along, and we are sticking to this position, that the budget will be on 27 September. This week we published the summer economic statement, which sets out what the underlying position is with the public finances. It means we can have a budget package in the autumn of €6.7 billion, €5.7 billion of which will be on the expenditure side, including investment in public services, improvements in public service pay, improvements in social welfare and so on. Another €1 billion will be on the tax side. We have also given a commitment that, in parallel with that, we will have a separate package of one-off measures that will be focused on the cost-of-living crisis that many families are facing. Not everyone is facing it but some families are and we acknowledge that. They need help. That is why, even outside of the normal budgetary cycle, we have made so many different interventions across this year, including a reduction in VAT on gas and electricity and a reduction in the excise duty on petrol and diesel. Both of those measures continue. The bullet payments on the fuel allowance, the reductions in public transport fares and reductions in the costs of medicines for families are just a few examples of what we have done outside the normal budgetary cycle.

We acknowledge that at this time of year there are extra pressures on families arising from the costs that need to be paid in July and August in the context of going back to school. That is why we have made this further very targeted intervention. These are time-sensitive costs. Waiting until the end of September in respect of these costs is not something we can stand over. That is why we have made an intervention that represents a significant investment, €67 million in total, by increasing the rate of the back to school clothing and footwear allowance to €260 for younger children and €385 for older children. That will benefit more than 260,000 children across over 150,000 families. In the budget, we also made a change to the eligibility criteria by matching the income test for single parents with that that applies to couples. That was an important change that expanded the availability of the allowance for single parents, who have to carry a lot of costs that they cannot share with a partner. We think that was the right move. In addition, we are waiving school transport scheme charges for the coming school year, which will save up to €500 for individual families. That will be particularly welcomed by families in rural Ireland, many of whom rely on the school transport scheme and who otherwise would be facing long journeys and commutes. We all know what the cost of fuel is like at this point in time.

Significantly, we are expanding the free school meals programme to all DEIS schools. In the most recent budget, we added about 300 extra DEIS schools to the programme and we are now extending the free meals programme to DEIS schools across the system, and the hot meals programme to DEIS primary schools. That means an extra 60,000 children will receive a hot meal in school. That is a very important intervention. We all know the value of ensuring children are properly fed so they can avail fully of the potential the education system affords them. This is an important intervention by the Government. Does it go as far as some people would like? Of course it does not. Will it offset all the costs? We never claimed it would. However, it will be of assistance to many thousands of families. These are targeted measures with regard to the back to school allowance and the extension of hot meals to children attending DEIS schools. They are very targeted measures which people will benefit from.

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