Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
1266. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Social Protection the provision that has been made for schools participating in the school meals programme; the number of schools participating; the number of children reached; and if she has plans to extend the reach of the scheme for the coming school year. [40983/22]
View answerThe school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,800 schools and organisations benefitting 290,000 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.
A budget of €68.1 million was provided in the Revised Estimates for the scheme in 2022.
Funding under the school meals (local projects) scheme can be provided for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, hot meals and afterschool clubs and is based on a maximum rate per child per day, depending on the type of meal being provided.
In recent years, entry to the school meals programme has been confined to DEIS schools in addition to schools identified as having levels of concentrated disadvantage that would benefit from access to the programme.
As part of Budget 2019, funding was provided for a pilot scheme from September 2019, providing hot school meals in primary schools at a cost of €1m for 2019 and €2.5m in 2020. The pilot involved 37 schools benefitting 6,744 students for the 2019/2020 academic year and was aimed primarily at schools with no onsite cooking facilities.
In Budget 2021, I announced an additional €5.5m to extend the provision of hot school meals to an additional 35,000 primary school children, currently receiving the cold lunch option. Invitations for expressions of interest were issued to 705 primary schools (612 DEIS and 93 non-DEIS) in November 2020. A total of 281 (256 DEIS and 25 non-DEIS) expressions of interest were received in respect of 52,148 children.
The 35,000 places were allocated to each local authority area based on the number of children applied for by each local authority as a percentage of the total number. A minimum of one school for each Local Authority area was selected. Thereafter, a process of random selection was used for each area.
Budget 2022 provided for hot school meals to be extended from January 2022 to the 81 DEIS schools that submitted an expression of interest but were not selected in the extension to 35,000 children as referred to earlier. This has brought the number of children currently benefitting from a hot school meal to 54,266.
In March 2022, the Minister for Education announced an extension of the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in School to an additional 273 primary and 37 post-primary schools from September 2022.
I have recently announced that the provision of the hot school meal option will be extended to all new DEIS primary schools and the cold lunch option to all new DEIS secondary schools at a full year cost of €26m and benefitting some 60,000 children. However, as 31 of these schools are already in receipt of funding, the additional cost of providing these options is €23.5m in a full year.
I am committed to continuing to grow the School Meals Programme (in particular, hot school meals for DEIS schools) and building further on the significant extension announced. 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.
Any extension of the school meals programme or the hot school meals beyond 2022 will need to be considered as part of the budgetary process.
I trust that this clarifies the position for the deputy.
