Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 June 2022
210. Deputy Michael Lowry asked the Minister for Social Protection the measures that she is putting in place to make sure all DEIS schools that are entitled to the meals programme will have access to this service in September 2022 (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34162/22]
View answerThe school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,506 schools and organisations benefitting 230,000 children. The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children who are unable, due to lack of good quality food, to take full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. In recent years entry to the School Meals Scheme has been confined to DEIS schools in addition to schools identified as having levels of concentrated disadvantage that would benefit from access to the School Meals Programme.
Prior to the introduction of DEIS in 2005, all schools and organisations that were part of one of a number of Department of Education and Skills’ initiatives for disadvantaged schools, which included Breaking the Cycle, Giving Children an Even Break, the Disadvantaged Area Scheme, Home School Community Liaison and the School Completion Programme, were eligible to participate in the programme.
These schools and organisations have continued to remain in the scheme since the introduction of DEIS in 2005 but their level of funding has been capped at the same rate year on year to allow for the concentration of the scheme on DEIS schools.
In Budget 2022, I provided funding of €68.1m for the school meals programme. This provided funding for all DEIS schools currently in the programme and for 81 DEIS schools to commence the hot school meals in 2022. Any provision to extend the programme to the newly added schools to the DEIS programme will need to be considered as part of the budgetary process.
I am committed to continuing to grow the school meals programme, in particular the hot school meals element and building further on the significant extension announced as part of Budget 2022.
In this regard, I have commissioned an evaluation of the school meals programme to be undertaken in 2022 to inform future policy decisions on the scheme.
I trust this clarifies the matter.
