I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The purpose of this Bill is to secure that so far as possible the sum of £10,000 provided by the Oireachtas in the School Meals (Gaeltacht) Act, 1930, will be fully availed of. Prior to the introduction of this Bill, Deputies are no doubt aware, the recoupment to each local authority concerned from the sum of £10,000 provided under the Act of 1930 was subject to a maximum of whichever happened to be the less, either (a) one-half of their expenditure, or (b) a sum which bears to the sum of £10,000 the same proportion as the number of children certified by the Minister for Education to have attended national schools in the district defined under the Act bears to the number of children certified to have attended national schools in the entire Gaeltacht defined under the Act during the prescribed period. It was found, however, in working the Act that on account of the poverty of the inhabitants of certain scheduled areas, it would be necessary to provide school meals in those districts during the entire school year instead of in the winter months only. Furthermore, the cost of the meals was increased owing to the difficulty of obtaining supplies locally and the difficulty of transport, due to the widely scattered areas in which the schools are situated. These conditions applied especially to the scheduled area in Galway County where expenditure on the scheme extended considerably the amount earning the full recoupment of 50 per cent. to which the board of health is entitled under the conditions imposed by the Act of 1930 to which I have already referred. In other areas, however, that is, Donegal and Kerry, possibly due to better conditions, the boards of health concerned have not expended the total sums in respect of which recoupment at the rate of 50 per cent. would be available. The present Bill, therefore, proposes merely to remove the restriction embodied in Section 1 (9) (b) of the principal Act so as to allow of a larger share of the £10,000 being assigned to districts in which the need is greater. For example, in 1932-33, in Galway County, the expenditure by the board of health and public assistance of £7,199 13s. 9d. would have entitled them to recoupment of £3,599 16s. 11d. if the overriding maximum imposed by the Act of 1930 had not been in operation. Due, however, to that restriction the amount to which they became entitled was only £2,451 8s. 10d. based on the attendance of children as provided in the principal Act.
School Meals (Gaeltacht) Bill, 1933—Second Stage.
Would the Minister give the amount to which they were entitled again?
They became entitled to only £2,451 8s. 10d. based on the attendance of children as provided in the principal Act and thus there was a deficiency of £1,148 8s. 1d. in recoupment. In the case of all the other boards concerned—Cork, Donegal, Kerry and Mayo—their actual expenditure was less than the expenditure necessary to earn full recoupment. The total issue from the grant in respect of the year 1932-33 amounted, therefore, to only £7,371 15s. 6d. If the present Bill had been in operation in respect of that year a sum of £2,628 4s. 6d. or the unexpended balance of the grant of £10,000, would have been available, out of which it would have been possible to meet the deficiency of £1,148 8s. 1d. in recoupment to Galway County referred to above.
There appears to be little doubt as to the benefits derived from the provision of these meals. The County Medical Officer of Health for County Kerry states that teachers in schools in the scheduled area in that county are unanimous in their opinion that school children are deriving great benefit from the provision of meals. Many of the children have to travel long distances to the school, he adds, and the provision of a hot meal for these children during play-hour has been a great boon and is bound to have a beneficial effect on their health and happiness. The other county medical officers are of the same opinion, one stating that a reinspection of children formerly found to be suffering from malnutrition has shown an improvement in most cases which may reasonably be attributed to the free meals.
I am afraid I did not quite grasp what the Parliamentary Secretary said. Do we infer that the counties Cork, Kerry, Donegal and Mayo did not utilise the old Act as fully as they might have?
Yes, that is so.
Mr. Lynch
Was that through the delinquencies of the local boards of health or was it that the children refused to take the meals? If the Parliamentary Secretary would give us that information it would, I imagine, be extremely illuminating. One is very glad to hear, of course, that the medical officers of health in the different counties have praised the effects of the Act. I should have liked to have heard something from the Parliamentary Secretary to indicate whether it might be desirable to extend the number of areas in the schedule or to increase the amount of £10,000. Of course, the fact that nearly £3,000 remained unexpended last year would indicate that the £10,000 was ample but, undoubtedly, it was the opinion of all Parties in the House at the time when the principal Act was introduced here that the schedule was rather limited and that very many other electoral areas in different counties could very well have been included.
I wonder whether any examination of that aspect of the matter has lately been made. I know that in my own constituency there were very grievous complaints against me for not having included several electoral areas and I was satisfied subsequent to the passing of the Act that some of them should have been included and were entitled to be included just as much as others were entitled to be included. I think it would be well if there were an examination of the Schedule by the officers of the Department of Local Government and perhaps, in co-operation with the Department of Education, to ascertain whether there are other areas which might well be included in the Schedule.
I want to join with Deputy Lynch in an inquiry as to what steps may be taken to add to the district electoral divisions which are contained in the Schedule to the Act of 1930. There are, I have no doubt, in every county electoral divisions which have the right of admission to the benefits of the Bill but it is for each of us who knows the local conditions in his own particular constituency to draw the Minister's attention to them. There is no doubt that in parts of Inishowen —I am sorry that Deputy O'Doherty is not here—near Malin, there are at least two electoral divisions that should have the benefit of this Bill and have not got it. There is, I am satisfied, one electoral division in the neighbourhood of Marin similarly situated. It is comprised in the parish of Kilclooney. There is also an electoral division between Burtonport and Dungloe which I think should have the benefit of this Act and has not. In connection with the last place referred to, I raised the matter with the Department of Education and I was there confronted with a return which they had received from a teacher in the area some four or five years ago in which it was represented that the children were not Irish-speaking. As far as I could judge that seemed to be an insuperable obstacle to getting that particular electoral division defined as a Fior-Ghaeltacht electoral division. I must confess that it now escapes my memory whether it was in connection with the School Meals Act I was dealing when I approached the Department of Education. I do not think it was. I think it was in connection with examinations for admission to preparatory schools. I should like to know from the Minister or from the Parliamentary Secretary, if representations are made to him that certain electoral divisions which may not have seemed to be Fior-Ghaeltacht when the Act of 1930 was passing through and are now Fior-Ghaeltacht or very strongly Breac-Ghaeltacht, whether he will consider admitting these electoral divisions to the Schedule of the Principal Act and this amending Bill.
There is one other question which I want to ask the Minister. Provision is made in Section 4 of the principal Act for meals. The terms are: (a) to provide food for such meals, (b) to provide accommodation, apparatus, equipment, etc., for the distribution and preparation of the food and (c) to take such other steps as in the opinion of the board of health are necessary for or incidental to the provision of such meals. The Minister is aware that it is the practice of the Department of Agriculture to send out circulars from time to time informing county committees of agriculture and other interested persons of recent discoveries in diet or husbandry of any kind which they are satisfied are worthy of consideration. I suggest that the Department of Public Health should send out to these school meals committees in particular, suggestions of the type of food that they would think particularly valuable for inclusion in the school meals. I throw out that suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary who is particularly well fitted to judge. His attention may have been directed recently to an alleged find in one of the branches of the Rockefeller Institute of the peculiar value of orange juice and lemon juice as a beverage for growing children to prevent the incidence of dental caries. It would seem to me that the inclusion of such an article as that in the diet of school children would be very easy, would be very acceptable to the children and would be extremely useful from a public health point of view. I would be much interested to know if the Parliamentary Secretary would consider co-operating with the school meals committees along these lines and giving them advice from time to time as to the specific articles that might with advantage be introduced into the diet under Section 4, paragraph (b) of the principal Act.
I am very glad that this Bill has been brought forward and, on behalf of the people of the Kerry Gaeltacht, I should like to get an assurance that the Parliamentary Secretary will consider the proposals sent forward by our county medical officer, namely, that extra areas be included in the new schedule which will be inaugurated under the new Bill. We could never understand why certain areas in West Kerry were excluded. Take, for instance, Dingle town which is practically in the heart of the Fior-Ghaeltacht and the Breac-Ghaeltacht. It is excluded from the Schedule under the principal Act. Certain other deserving districts in the Breac-Ghaeltacht were also excluded. We have formulated a scheme in co-operation with the county medical officers and we ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give it his favourable consideration. We simply ask that all Breac-Ghaeltacht districts be included in the list under the new schedule and that two or three other areas which we have indicated should also be included. A recommendation has also been made by the Kerry County Board of Health that the type of school meal might be improved upon. We welcome the Bill because it will give local authorities in places like Kerry a great opportunity of doing their utmost for the people concerned. We have received repeated representations from the teachers in the districts referred to asking us to do our utmost to get these areas included. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give every consideration to the proposals sent forward by the Kerry County Board of Health in regard to this important matter.
Deputy Lynch asked me to inform the House, as far as my information would enable me, of the cause of the delinquency of the boards of health concerned. It appeared to him to be an astonishing fact that all the money earmarked for assisting the finances of the free school meals was not being availed of. I understand that it is due in the main to two causes. In the first place many of the local authorities are not striking a rate to raise a sufficient amount of money to absorb the grant that would be available from the Central Fund, 50 per cent. of the cost to be provided in the areas concerned is borne out of State funds, but if the local authorities do not raise sufficient money to finance a scheme that will entirely absorb that 50 per cent. they can only get 50 per cent. of the actual expenditure, so that it is largely, I think, the fault of the local authorities themselves that this £10,000 earmarked for the purpose is not being entirely absorbed. In some areas the school managers have not encouraged the adoption of the free school meals in the Gaeltacht areas. In a limited number of cases the school managers in these areas have actually opposed the extension of the free meals on the grounds that the people in these areas would prefer to maintain their independence and purchase their own food. Of course, that is a mentality that can well be understood and appreciated, but it is one of the factors contributing, anyhow, to the refund to the Exchequer of approximately £3,000 that would be available for this purpose.
On the question of increasing the area scheduled under the School Meals Act that would require specific legislation and, so far, no case has been made for extending the area. It is hard to see how we could. Presumably, if the area were extended—and I may say that, personally, I should be glad to see it extended in the entire Gaeltacht area—it would be hard to make a case to the Minister for Finance at the moment that more money should be made available for this purpose in the light of the fact that the money that is already available is not being availed of. The Deputy from Kerry, Mr. Flynn, informs the House that proposals are coming forward from the Kerry Board of Health to extend the area in which the school meals will operate. These proposals have not yet reached my Department, and I presume that when the proposals do reach us there will be an indication of the preparedness of the Kerry Board of Health to strike an increased rate for the purpose of financing the extended scheme. If the various boards of health in which this Act operates, give such indication, we will be at least in a position to put up a reasonable case to the Minister for Finance for more money, but until such time as they strike a rate to absorb the money that is already at their disposal, I think it is futile to discuss the question of extending the area.
I do not think that there is any other point arising out of the discussion that requires to be dealt with. Deputy Dillon mentioned the desirability of sending out circulars from time to time with suggestions for improvement of the school meals. That has been in actual practice in my Department for quite a number of years and, from time to time, suggestions are sent out to the local authorities, and the expert advice of our Department in relation to these matters is placed at their disposal. The suggestion of providing fresh fruit juice or orange juice as part of the school meals would be desirable, undoubtedly. Its desirability from the medical point of view, I am sure, would not be questioned; but I am afraid that it would be very difficult to operate. The cost of the meals has to be kept within reasonable limits. It is a matter that would require careful examination, and I doubt if, for the same expenditure, we could not provide a better substitute for the children than orange juice. However, as I say, the matter will bear examination and, if feasible, it will be put into practice, I am sure.