Ms Helen Faughnan:

To follow on from the points about educating families, the network of family resource centres throughout the country does good work in terms of supporting families and educating them on food quality. The centres teach them the basics of how to cook on a budget. In some ways, the Money Advice & Budgeting Service, MABS, also has a role in this regard. This is an important aspect to the issue.

In terms of value for money, this sector makes business sense for quite a number of companies. Decisions on the food and how it will be provided are for the school to make locally. The school principal and the board of management, possibly with input from the parents, will make the decisions. If they want to source it locally, that is entirely up to them. Our Department has held a preliminary meeting with officials from the Office of Government Procurement to tease out the possibility of a centralised procurement framework for the delivery of school meals in order that schools can draw down on a nationwide procurement process. This is at a very early stage of exploration and will depend on the capacity of the Office of Government Procurement. It is, however, something we will explore in more detail.

On some of the restrictions which applied to a school, until now if a school was running any sort of meal scheme, including a small snack club, for instance, it was precluded from setting up a second scheme. With the increased funding over recent years, we have been able to extend the schools meal programme to approximately 100 new DEIS schools. We have also been able to revisit existing DEIS schools where pupil numbers have increased or where only a snack club was in play. A school coming to us looking for funding for a breakfast club will, depending on the number of pupils, get 100% funding. If the school was a small, low-funded school, we would fund it up to 80% of its requirements. Generally, across the board, we will provide an increase in funding of up to 20%. Many schools have experienced increased allocations this year. If any Deputy or Senator is concerned about a particular school, he or she should speak to us about it.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh mentioned the historical issue relating to the urban school meals scheme. The scheme goes back to the Dublin Lockout and the local authority involvement at the time. Some 300 schools are covered and joint funding is in place. This is something we will examine in a review of the DEIS schools and the provision under DEIS. We will be engaging with the Department of Education and Skills.