Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

Regarding school meals, every school makes that call. I met a company earlier this week in my own area. It is a very local company that is supporting local schools. I am very conscious of the burden on school communities regarding managing procurement, etc., and we are trying to make it easy but also to encourage them to use local services. We have some good feedback on meals on wheels providing that.

Regarding beneficiaries of temporary protection, there are more than 114,000 PPSNs while the figure for weekly payments to beneficiaries of temporary protection is 3,000, of which 68 were awarded. The figures are beginning to fall given that the number of new arrivals has gone well down. We are making payments in respect of 29,200 people, which includes adult dependants. They are people who are not living in designated accommodation centres. That is compared with 39,300 in June 2024. We reckon that about 25,000 people who came in as beneficiaries of temporary protection are in employment and that 40,000 have left the country, so there is a big turnaround in some of those figures and it is happening every day.