Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

One of the key underspends is a projected €51 million underspend on the school meals scheme. This is due to a lower number of new schools joining the scheme in 2025 than was anticipated. The Department of education, for which we provide funding to operate the school meals scheme, changed the procurement guidelines this year to ensure the most rigorous standards of food safety were applied. The implementation of these guidelines has delayed an onboarding - a word I hate, but it keeps coming up everywhere-----