Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 April 2024
4. Deputy Gary Gannon asked the Minister for Social Protection if there are plans to seek more sustained, long-term solutions to support families experiencing food poverty during school holidays, given the Children’s Rights Alliance food provision scheme received applications totalling over €350,000 - six times its capacity, in the run up to the Christmas holidays in 2023. [18664/24]
View answerMinister Humphreys was very pleased to recently announce the extension of the Hot School Meals programme meaning that an additional 900 schools and 150,000 children are now eligible for hot meals. This means that there are now over 2,000 Primary Schools and 316,000 children able to benefit from Hot School Meals, having started in 2019 with a small pilot of 30 schools. The Department has also invited further expressions of interest from remaining schools as Minister Humphreys wants to expand the scheme so that every child born today will benefit from a hot school meal.
This expansion of the Hot School Meals programme reflects the Government's determination to alleviate food poverty as committed under the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020 - 2025 .
Goal 7 of the Roadmap is to “ensure that all people can live with confidence that they have access to good quality healthcare, housing, energy and food.” Commitment 61 of the Roadmap commits Government to “develop a comprehensive programme of work to further explore the drivers of food poverty and to identify mitigating actions.”
In order to advance this commitment the Food Poverty Working Group, under my chairmanship was established in 2021, consisting of representatives from a range of Government Departments and the community and voluntary sector.
In addition to rolling out Hot School Meals, and taking on board the recommendations of the Food Poverty Working Group, I secured funding under Budget 2023 to introduce a pilot scheme, based on a case worker model, to support people experiencing food poverty.
Following a procurement process, the pilot programme commenced in September 2023 and is provided by organisations involved in emergency food provision in three regions of Ireland: Crosscare in Dublin, Feed Cork in Cork and Mid-West Simon in Limerick.
The pilot programme seeks to help address the underlying reasons that people have found themselves experiencing food poverty through a case worker service that directs people to appropriate supports and services. The pilot is due to run for a period of 18 months and aims to assist at least 200 people in each region.
I met with the organisations involved in delivering the pilot programme at the most recent meeting of the Food Poverty Working Group and am pleased to report that the programme is progressing extremely well.
I trust that this clarifies the position for the Deputy.
