Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 July 2021
167. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will extend the hot meals pilot to reach more children and schools that are under the school meals programme.; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35284/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe 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.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 that an additional €5.5m would be provided 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. A total of 281 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 by 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. As a result of this process, 189 of the 281 schools that submitted an expression of interest were selected. Due to the fact that the funding available was limited to 35,000 children, it was not possible to include all schools that submitted an expression of interest to avail of hot school meals. A number of schools which were selected decided not to proceed and these places have been reallocated to other schools.I am committed to continuing to grow the hot school meals element of the school meals programme and building further on the significant extension announced as part of Budget 2021. I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
