Stuggling parents contact SVP for food vouchers

Hundreds of cash-strapped city families are approaching St Vincent de Paul seeking food vouchers in order to free up money to cover crippling-back-to-school costs.

The charity has revealed that over the past couple of months it has received 560 calls to its centre at St Augustine Street which were directly or indirectly related to children returning to school.

While the majority of these calls related to the cost of books, uniforms and the so-called ‘voluntary’ school contributions, many families were simply looking for food so they could save money to fund routine back-to-school expense.

The West Regional President of SvP, Michael McCann, told Galway City Tribune that the months of July and August were normally relatively quiet when it came to requests from the public, but the back-to-school issue had resulted in an unprecedented number of calls.

Many of these were from the city with some being from surrounding rural areas, he said. And hard-pressed families were having particular difficulty in coming up with the voluntary school contributions.

Mr McCann explained that the charity regularly approached schools on behalf of families dealing with financial crises and in many cases the principals were sympathetic.

“The contributions that are expected from parents, along with the cost of books and uniforms result in a huge financial burden when it should be much more affordable,” he said.

“School books should be free, as is the situation in Northern Ireland, generic uniforms should be acceptable and parents should not be asked to pay the voluntary contribution if they cannot afford to do so,” Mr McCann added.

He also said that technology was gradually becoming an added cost for families, particularly with the growing use of iPads in classrooms. These can cost between €500 and €800.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul, which regularly supplies necessities such as copy-books and stationery to families, has been critical of cuts in Government capitation grants – these are paid to primary and secondary schools to cover day-to-day expenses. Parents are being left to make up the shortfall caused by these cuts.

The hundreds of requests that have been received by the SvP offices on St Augustine Street over the past two months are being processed currently. Meanwhile, Mr McCann pointed out that one school principal informed him that any family that could not afford the voluntary contribution should not pay it.

It is understood that the voluntary contribution being required from families in Galway city can range between €300 and €400 a year.

St Vincent de Paul is proposing a €20 million investment in Budget 2020 to provide free books to all primary school children to begin with.

The charity is also proposing a working group be set up to examine the use of digital devices in schools.