Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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632. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of applications by schools, per county, to change from providing a cold lunch to students to the provision of another meal, in tabular form; what the process for this change is; and what funding is available for these schools who wish to change from cold food provision to hot food provision. [40101/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The School Meals Programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to some 1,700 schools and organisations benefitting 300,000 children. The objective of the 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.

Budget 2023 provided €94.4 million for the programme. In February, the Government approved an additional €14.5m to allow access to the Hot School Meals scheme for all remaining DEIS schools from September 2023.

My Department provides the funding for the School Meals Programme directly to the school and it is the responsibility of each individual school to administer the programme in their school. Funding under the school meals scheme can be provided for breakfast, snack, cold lunch, dinner, hot school meals and afterschool clubs and is based on a maximum rate per child per day, depending on the type of meal being provided.

The hot school meal commenced as a pilot in 2019. Since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection, I have increased the number of schools with access to the Hot School Meal option from 37 to 1,100. 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. In this regard, I am rolling out the Hot School Meals to all remaining DEIS primary and special schools from September 2023.

A tabular breakdown of the number of schools and pupils per county with access to hot school meal funding from September 2023 as well as a tabular breakdown of all the schools per county that already moved to the provision of hot school meals in the 2022/2023 school year is provided below.

The School Meals programme is currently accepting applications for the 2023/2024 school year. All DEIS primary schools and special schools invited to avail of the hot school meals option, can go online and download the SMLPS 1 application on gov.ie - School Meals Scheme (www.gov.ie). This application has a list of club options available on page 3, with the corresponding payment rates on page 7. The current rate for cold lunch is €1.70 per child, per day compared to the hot school meal rate of €3.20 per child, per day.

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. In this regard, as part of significant plans to extend the Hot School Meals programme, all remaining primary schools have been contacted and have been asked to submit an expression of interest form if their school is interested in commencing the provision of hot school meals. Expressions of interest forms were received from over 900 non DEIS schools in respect of 150,000 children. From 2024, I intend commencing the roll-out of Hot School Meals to all remaining primary schools on a phased basis.

I trust this clarifies the matter.

Table 1. Schools and pupils per county with access to hot school meal funding

Table 2. Schools who availed of hot school meals in 2022/2023