Funding towards school meals is being provided in over 1,580 schools and other organisations, supporting over 248,000 children at a cost of some €54 million in 2018, representing an increase of €6.5 million over the previous year. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement.
Based on the 2018 budgetary allocation of €54 million, the estimated cost of increasing expenditure on the school meals programme by 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% is provided in the tabular statement. Changes to increase the funding of any scheme administered by my Department would have to be considered in a budgetary context.
Tabular Statement: Additional annual costs of expanding the school meals programme
Increase in expenditure
|
Additional annual cost
|
5%
|
€2.7m
|
10%
|
€5.4m
|
15%
|
€8.1m
|
20%
|
€10.8m
|