School Meals Programme

Tuesday, 23 April 2024

Questions (408)

Jim O'Callaghan

Question:

408. Deputy Jim O'Callaghan asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will detail, on a county-by-county basis, a breakdown of the 150,000 children that will benefit from the expansion of the hot meals scheme announced on 15 April 2024, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17606/24]

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Written answers

Minister for Social Protection

The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The Programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. Following the expansion of the Programme in recent years, some 2,600 schools and organisations, covering 443,000 children are now eligible for funding.

I am committed to continuing to expand the School Meals Programme and building further on the significant extension of the Programme that has taken place in recent years. As part of this significant expansion plan, all remaining primary schools were contacted last year and requested to submit an expression of interest form if their school is interested in commencing the provision of hot school meals.

Expressions of interests were received from over 900 primary schools in respect of 150,000 children and late last year these schools were invited to participate in the Hot School Meals Programme from 8th April 2024. The remaining Primary Schools who have not yet joined the scheme will be able to express an interest to receive Hot School Meals from September 2024. My Department will contact them by email shortly to notify them of the Expression of Interest process.

The breakdown requested can be seen in the tabular statement below.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Table 1 – Breakdown of 150,000 pupils by County

County:	Pupils
Carlow	1,764
Cavan	4,750
Clare	4,296
Cork	20,705
Donegal	3,077
Dublin	25,496
Galway	9,179
Kerry	6,065
Kildare	6,739
Kilkenny	4,952
Laois	4,382
Leitrim	955
Limerick	7,448
Longford	1,294
Louth	4,014
Mayo	2,879
Meath	7,906
Monaghan	2,372
Offaly	2,575
Roscommon	2,828
Sligo	374
Tipperary	7,649
Waterford	1,925
Westmeath	4,614
Wexford	7,322
Wicklow	5,293