Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 22 January 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth
Hot School Meals Programme: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We have apologies from our Cathaoirleach, Deputy Cathal Crowe, who is unable to make it today.
Everyone is very welcome. I ask anyone attending remotely to mute themselves when not contributing so that we do not pick up any background noise or feedback. As usual, I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off.
Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. As witnesses are within the precincts of Leinster House, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they will make to the committee. This means they may have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty as Leas-Chathaoirleach to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is that imperative they comply with any such direction.
Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside of the House, or an official of the House, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
On the agenda for today's meeting is evaluating the impact of the hot school meals programme. I welcome the following witnesses to the meeting: Dr. Naomi Feely, the policy director from the Children's Rights Alliance; Ms. Áine Lynch, CEO of the National Parents Council; Ms Louise Bayliss, the head of social justice and policy at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul; Mr. Denis Carrigan, public relations officer from the Association of Teachers of Home Economics; Dr. Darina Allen, cook and author from Ballymaloe Cookery School; and Mr. Stephen Moffatt, national policy manager with Barnardos Ireland.
The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Ombudsman for Children's Office, OCO, declined invitations to attend. The ESRI advised this is outside its area of expertise. The OCO advised that the ombudsman and relevant staff must attend another Oireachtas committee meeting, so the OCO will make a written submission.
I will now call the witnesses in the following order: Dr. Feely, Ms Lynch, Ms Bayliss, Mr. Carrigan, Dr. Allen and Mr. Moffatt. They will each have five minutes to make their opening statement. We want to get through as much as we can here today, so if they here a little tink on the glass, it means the five minutes are up. Any part of their opening statement that they may not have finished at that stage will be published on the committee's webpage, so there will be a record of that. The opening statements will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Members will have six minutes each.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
Good morning, committee members and colleagues. The Children’s Rights Alliance welcomes the opportunity to be here today to discuss with the committee the impacts of the school meals programme. Addressing child poverty and social exclusion is a key priority for the Children’s Rights Alliance. We only need to look at the statistics on poverty to realise why that is. Across each measure, we can see that children experience the highest forms of poverty when we look at these by age rate. From the survey on income and living conditions, SILC, 2024 that while we do not have a specific measure of food poverty, we know that individuals in consistent poverty have a high rate of being unable to afford key food items per week. We know that 20% of those living in consistent poverty were unable to afford a roast once a week and 11% were unable to afford a meal with chicken or fish every second day. Therefore, those living in consistent poverty are significantly more likely to experience food-related deprivation.
Since 2019, we have seen successive budgets commit funding to expanding the hot school meals scheme. This is a really critical way of addressing food poverty for children in schools right across the country. We have seen a very positive roll-out of the scheme using the progressive, universalist approach by first prioritising DEIS schools and special schools at primary level. We need to maintain momentum on the investment in school meals so that we expand it to all secondary schools using the progressive, universalist approach and dealing first with DEIS schools. We recommend that the Government realises its commitment in the programme for Government to roll out hot school meals to all secondary schools over the lifetime of the Government.
Given the harm caused by child poverty and, in particular, its connections with obesity and being overweight, it is of critical importance that food provided through the school meals programme is nutritional. There has been some concern raised from experts about the nutritional standards of the food provided under the school meals programme. However, we have not seen comprehensive data or research on the quality of hot school meals, with many of the issues to date being raised in the media. We know that the Department of Social Protection has an oversight role in the roll-out of hot school meals. Given that it is carrying out inspections each year, it is critical that the Department publish the results of these inspections to build confidence in the hot school meals scheme.
Implicitly connected to the issue of quality is the funding rate available for each meal. While we recognise and acknowledge that these rates increased in 2023, they may simply not be enough. There is a need to monitor the rates on an annual basis and connect their adequacy to delivering nutritional meals.
We recommend that the Department of Social Protection publish an annual report on the results of the inspections of schools in order to build confidence among the general public around the quality and nutritional value of school meals and also highlight where there are deficiencies emerging. The Government should leverage the work being undertaken by the interdepartmental working group and, in particular, the dietitian seconded to the Department of Social Protection to determine whether the current meal rates are sufficient to deliver nutritional meals.
Finally, I will speak briefly about the issue of holiday hunger. From our members, we know that many families rely very acutely on the provision of a hot school meal during school term. However, during the summertime, Christmas and Easter holidays, they are no longer guaranteed that hot school meal.
Since 2022, and due to the generosity of our funders, both the Community Foundation Ireland and Lakeside Foundation in particular, the Children's Rights Alliance has distributed €1.5 million in grants to support 170 projects to tackle holiday hunger. The majority of organisations funded through these initiatives have been family resource centres, schools and organisations supporting children and young people more broadly.
The issue of holiday hunger is highlighted in the 2023 evaluation of the school meals programme. The report acknowledges that there is a need to have a broader Government response in addressing holiday hunger. Among the short-term to medium-term improvements to be delivered by 2025, it called for an extended or modified version of the school meals programme for beyond term time to address holiday hunger. In budget 2025, the Government funded two pilot holiday hunger schemes, with support from three Departments. There is a need to build on the insights from these pilots to scale up impact over subsequent budget cycles.
We are calling for an evaluation, extension and expansion of the holiday hunger pilot programme to summer and Christmas holidays in 2026. We need to leverage the insights, knowledge and experience of the community and voluntary sector and create a fund to enable them to also directly address food poverty.
Ms Áine Lynch:
The National Parents Council, NPC, thanks the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the hot school meals scheme. In preparation for the meeting, the NPC conducted two national surveys to gather feedback from families on the scheme - one for parents and one for children. These surveys explored satisfaction with the programme, its impact on children’s school experience and suggestions for improvement. The surveys were open for 24 hours from 13 January to 14 January 2026 and received 3,411 responses in total: 2,465 from parents and 946 from children. The full findings have been shared with the committee and this opening statement summarises the key insights.
The majority of the parents surveyed, 87%, said there was a hot meal service in their child’s school. Overall, these families welcomed the principle of providing meals in schools, with 49% of parents rating their overall satisfaction with the service at seven to ten on a ten-point scale, with ten being the highest rating of satisfaction. They recognised benefits, such as saving time, saving money and improving their child’s eating habits.
However, both parents and children raised significant concerns about the current implementation. These key concerns included food quality and variety. Parents and children consistently reported that meals were often bland, soggy, over-processed and lacking in nutritional value. They reported that there is limited choice, with few options for vegetarians, children with allergies or those with sensory needs. On portion sizes and time to eat, all children receive the same portion size, which does not meet the needs of older pupils and leads to waste among younger ones. Parents and children told us lunch breaks were often too short, leaving children rushed or unable to finish their meals.
On the waste and environmental impact, food waste and packaging waste were highlighted as major issues. Parents called for compostable or reusable containers and better planning to reduce waste. On practical challenges, parents reported that meals were frequently delivered hours before lunchtime, which then resulted in cold or soggy food. Many parents also reported that their schools lacked canteen facilities, meaning children ate at their desks. Parents suggested that future planning of school design should include kitchens and dining spaces. On fairness and cost, some parents support universal access to avoid stigma while others question whether the scheme is necessary for all schools and whether funds could be better spent on teachers or classroom resources.
From the children's perspectives, children echoed many of these concerns, saying they wanted tastier food, more variety, bigger portions and enough time to eat comfortably. Children described eating at their desks, as there was no other space in the school. This was problematic for them in terms of space. They also asked for menus to change more often and for meals to be healthier and less processed. Children also expressed a desire for simpler, fresher options, which could include sandwiches, wraps, fruit and salads, for example. This was particularly during the warmer months.
There are schools where there is currently no hot meal services. We asked parents and children whose schools did not have a hot meal provided to give us their views. The majority of these parents, 75%, would like to have the service in their schools. They told us that the main benefits they saw to this was that it would improve their child’s eating habits, save them time and promote fairness and equal access for all children. Most of the children, 72%, in schools that did not have a hot meal would also like to get one.
The overall message is that families support the idea of school meals but believe the scheme needs some major improvements. They want a programme that prioritises healthy, fresh and appealing food, reduces waste and involves parents and children in menu planning. Clear communication, flexibility for dietary needs and age-appropriate portions are essential.
By addressing these issues, policymakers can ensure the hot school meals scheme becomes a positive and lasting part of school life that supports nutrition, equality and learning for all children. I will finish with a comment from a child in the survey, who said:
I love a hot meal at lunchtime. I wish I had more time to eat. Thanks for it.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
I wish committee members a good morning and thank them for providing the opportunity for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to contribute to this important conversation. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is an all-Ireland, member-led organisation that supports families and individuals in need. In 2024, we provided over €41 million in direct financial assistance to people. In 2025, we recorded more than 260,000 requests for assistance, a 6% increase on 2024 and the highest number of requests we have ever received.
Food remains the biggest driver of need. We received 112,000 requests for food assistance in 2025, up 8,500 on 2024. For four months of last year, food requests exceeded 10,000 per month. It is important to understand the level of food poverty when we are discussing the impact of hot school meals.
Our comments are guided by the following facts. Food poverty remains a significant challenge. The most recent report of the Vincentian Minimum Essential Standard of Living Research Centre shows that social protection rates are inadequate for households reliant on support. Only 88% of the needs of primary school-aged children are met and this drops to 64% for children in second level education. The survey on income and living conditions, SILC, 2024 reported that there are over 256,000 children experiencing enforced deprivation in Ireland, including essentials such as nutritious meals.
The most recent homelessness figures show there are 5,321 children living in emergency accommodation, which is a year-on-year increase of 663 children. There are also over 9,000 children in the international protection accommodation service. Many of these children do not have access to nutritious meals.
We know that child food poverty impacts on a child's long-term educational attainment, physical well-being and future socioeconomic outcomes. Children experience higher poverty rates than any other age group. SILC 24 showed that the national consistent poverty rate was 5%, but for children it was 8.5%. More worryingly, for children in one-parent households the rate was 11%.
The Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children, HBSC, study of 2022 showed that 18% of children reported going to bed or school hungry because of a lack of food. In this context, we believe that the provision of free hot school meals is an important tool to mitigate the negative impacts of food poverty among children and we welcome the initiative.
We understand some of the concerns around the implementation of the scheme and agree that as is the case for any new initiative, a robust evaluation of the programme is essential and the implementation of any recommendations must follow. The State is investing a significant amount in the provision of free hot school meals and it is important that any use of public funds is getting value for money and achieving the desired outcomes. It is important that any evaluation addresses the following concerns: nutritional value, school logistics, holiday hunger, packaging waste and sustainability through locally sourced produce. Investment in the free school meals programme should benefit Irish food producers.
I will address two important issues, namely, the importance of the universal provision of the programme and the expansion of the programme to children in second level education. Most people will see the importance of the hot school meals programme for the 18% of children experiencing hunger but may question the universal approach. The UK has had a targeted free school meals programme for over 80 years and considerable research shows many children in need will forgo their entitlement to a meal because of the stigma associated with the programme, and many parents fail to apply for similar reasons. School should be a welcoming and inclusive place with no child feeling the stigma of poverty. From our minimum essential standard of living, MESL, research and our own case relation management, CRM, system, we know that households with older children are more likely to experience income inadequacy and enforced deprivation. Older children have longer school days and heavier workloads. It is crucial that their physical well-being and educational needs are supported at this time and we would strongly support an expansion of the hot school meals programme to all children in second level education. I thank the committee.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for the invitation to appear before them today. I am a home economics teacher representing the Association of Teachers of Home Economics. I currently work in a special school where I see first hand the very real benefits of the hot school meals programme for children and young people. Access to a regular hot meal during the school day can support students' well-being, concentration, routine and readiness to learn. The programme is an important intervention and one that is broadly welcomed by schools, parents and students.
It is important to note that for many home economics teachers direct engagement with the hot school meals programme is limited, as it currently operates primarily at primary school level and within DEIS post-primary schools. Nonetheless, home economics teachers have professional expertise in nutrition, food preparation, adolescent development and sustainability, and therefore have a valuable contribution to make to discussions about how the programme is implemented and expanded.
We welcome the Government's commitment to extend the hot school meals programme further at post-primary level. As this expansion is planned, it is essential that lessons are taken from the programme's implementation to date. This is particularly important when considering nutritional standards at key stages of development as both children and adolescents have increased nutritional needs during periods of rapid growth, cognitive development and physical activity. Although the programme is nationally funded, the nutritional experience of students can vary significantly depending on how meals are provided at school level. Schools currently use different approaches to provide hot meals. Some meals are cooked off-site and delivered ready to eat. Others are prepared centrally and reheated in schools. A smaller number of schools prepare meals fully on-site. Where meals are prepared on-site, schools often report greater flexibility around ingredients, portion sizes and the inclusion of fresh fruit and vegetables. In contrast, where meals are prepared centrally and reheated, teachers and parents often observe meals that are heavily carbohydrate-based, with relatively small portions of protein and limited inclusion of fruit and vegetables. This raises concerns about whether meals are consistently meeting nutritional standards and supporting sustained energy and concentration during the school day.
Portion size is another important consideration. Current nutritional standards state that portions should be age appropriate, with guidance for primary schools recommending that meals begin at approximately half an adult portion for younger children and gradually increase towards a full adult portion by sixth class. In practice, however, this progression is not always evident. In many schools, the same portion size is provided to both junior infant pupils and sixth-class students. This does not reflect the significant differences in energy, growth and nutritional requirements between younger children and older pupils during key stages of physical and cognitive development.
There are also important sustainability considerations linked to the current delivery of the programme. These include food waste, the reliance on single-use packaging, the seasonality of fruit and vegetables and the environmental impact of long food supply chains. There is a significant opportunity for the programme to better align with sustainability and climate action goals by reducing waste, prioritising seasonal produce and supporting more localised food preparation, where possible.
The hot school meals programme provides an opportunity to support children and young people learning about food, nutrition and sustainability. In other countries, school meal systems are used to teach children about healthy eating habits, international food cultures and the environmental impact of food. In this way, school meals become not just about providing food but also about supporting children’s understanding of healthy eating and long-term well-being.
The hot school meals programme has clear and positive potential. As it continues to expand, it is vital that nutritional quality, age-appropriate portion sizes, sustainability and food education are placed at the centre of its design and delivery. Home economics teachers are well placed to support this work, ensuring that public investment in school meals delivers the greatest possible benefit for children, young people and society. I thank the committee for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion.
Dr. Darina Allen:
I thank the committee for inviting me to speak on this critically important issue. I am not here today just on my own behalf but on behalf of a coalition of concerned food professionals, educators, advocates, academics and parents working to improve children's diets. We want to work with committee members to ensure that school food is more than just a meal. Let us be very clear: the responsibility and the opportunity to effect real change lies with politicians. Unless there is a genuine willingness to accept that the current school meals programme is not fit for purpose, and to adopt a different model, meaningful progress simply will not happen. Ambitious political decisions can transform public health. We remember the smoking ban.
We, of course, welcome the introduction of a national hot school meals programme and recognise its intention and huge potential.
School lunch, however, is much more than a meal. With every bite comes the opportunity either to damage or to enhance a child’s health. As food historian Margaret Visser said, "Much depends on dinner.” What children eat directly affects their energy, vitality and ability to concentrate and learn.
My primary concern is that the current programme’s design and delivery are undermining children’s health. The meals provided are largely lacking in high-quality, nutrient-dense and genuinely delicious food. There is also a huge missed opportunity to integrate food education into the school day - teaching children how to grow food, cook, eat well and the importance of it. Food should nourish both mind and body and connect children to their local area, the seasons and Irish farmers and producers. Children need a positive relationship with food to understand the importance of food and the idea that food should be our medicine and certainly can be. Prevention is much better than cure.
We can no longer say we do not know. We now have overwhelming evidence of the harm ultra-processed foods are doing to our health, and ultra-processed foods dominate many school meals. Already, one in five primary school children is overweight or obese, rising to one in four in DEIS schools. We are now heading towards a monumental health crisis. In fact, we are already in one. Without urgent action, diet-related illness will place an even greater burden on the Exchequer. The current model is based on high volume and low cost, with very little transparency about how meals are produced. Some contractors do not even put them together on site, as has been mentioned. Each reheating further degrades the nutrient density. This might be all right on a plane. It is an industrial approach akin to airline food, which is acceptable occasionally but not five days a week for most of the school year. The food waste is off the scale.
For children who may have little or no access to nutritious food at home, the stakes are even higher. "Something is better than nothing" is far too low a bar for a national programme relied upon by so many children for daily nourishment. What is needed now is a completely new model, one that supports national goals on health, sustainability, food waste, green procurement, rural economies and short supply chains. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Other countries have shown us plenty of ways that this works. In Brazil, 30% of school meal funding must be spent on food sourced from local family farms. In France, public procurement supports short supply chains, with at least 20% of school food required to be organic and chemical-free. In Copenhagen, up to 80% of food produced for schools, prisons, hospitals and care homes is organic, with measurable positive results. This is not elitist. Another example is the Isle of Man, where they reduced processed food from 50% to 5% and increased locally produced food from 6% to 25, strongly supported by parents and school communities. In Wales, under the Well-being of Future Generations Act, the Welsh vegetables in schools project now delivers over 200,000 portions of fresh organic vegetables across more than 200 primary schools, with more joining.
Japan provides a particularly compelling example. Anticipating a future health crisis linked to ultra-processed food, the Japanese Government further invested in what was already a gold standard school meals system. Every school must have an in-house nutritionist. Meals are cooked from scratch using fresh, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. Both teachers and children eat every bite. They eat together at laid tables, serve one another and help with the clean-up. School meals are seen as a vital part of food education and life skills development. Japan has one of the lowest childhood obesity rates in the world. There are many other examples.
Closer to home, we have a brilliant working example. The Duhallow Community Food initiative in north Cork prepares 2,500 meals each morning for 29 primary schools. There is no reheating of pre-packaged ultra-processed food. It is just simple, whole ingredients-----
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Allen. The rest of her statement will be published on the committee's website.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I call on Mr. Moffatt to deliver his opening statement.
Mr. Stephen Moffatt:
I thank the committee very much inviting Barnardos here to speak on the important topic of hot school meals. Barnardos provides support in about 50 locations across the country. In 2024, we worked with over 35,000 children and their families. The families we support are dealing with numerous adversities and traumatic life situations, including but not limited to poor parental mental health, substance misuse and addiction, parental separation, neglect, bereavement, domestic violence, and poor housing including emergency accommodation. Alongside these adversities, most families we support are living in poverty and deprivation. Our services work in 22 of the 27 areas across the country that Pobal deems to be either extremely or very disadvantaged. Poverty and deprivation is often both a cause and result of those adversities. It worsens and compounds them, making them harder to address, increasing stress and tensions within the homes.
Our services are needs led, outcomes focused and based on evidence aiming to mitigate harm that children and families face due to trauma and the adversities previously outlined. We offer a range of early interventions and targeted services across the country in family homes, schools, early learning settings and communities. Food plays a substantial role in many of our services. We know how important it is in providing energy for children and helping them effectively regulate themselves. We run breakfast clubs in Limerick and provide hot meals to all children in our early years services, which provide services to over 300 children. We see the positive impact that having food has on children and their engagement in learning and regulation. We provide snacks at all of our service locations. The parents we support who I have spoken to are overwhelming happy with the hot school meals provided to their children and repeatedly state that their children experience significant benefits as a result, while staff see significant value for the children they are working with. The parents we support predominantly talk about the positives. They do not bring up negatives with us.
The main positives parents and staff focus on are as follows. Every child is guaranteed a hot meal every day they are in school. Without the programme not all children we support would receive one, because of both poverty and additional parental adversities. Hot school meals significantly improve the nutrition of a lot of children we support, because of where they are coming from, in a way that is not stigmatising. Parents can discuss food in a positive and non-stressful manner with their children while they choose options from the menu. They take financial pressures off most parents we support. The financial benefit for families is not insignificant. Families we support who have three children in school are getting 15 meals a week. That saving can be spent on other essentials the families would otherwise go without or have to cut back on. Alongside the financial benefits are reduced stress and worries about constant budgeting for and preparation of meals for children by parents who are dealing with adversities in particular. This is now one fewer concern for them and they greatly appreciate it, which can lead to improved household environments.
In 2021, we began researching the impact the cost-of-living crisis was having on children and families. With essential costs rapidly increasing, more and more of the families we supported were struggling financially, being pulled into greater poverty and deprivation. The need and demand for supermarket vouchers, which we provide across many of our services, increased dramatically. As a result, one area of research we focused on specifically was food insecurity. We have produced four annual detailed reports on the issue based on surveys and interviews with parents. Our most recent report found that 19% of parents and their children had had to cut back or go without food over the past six months, 40% of parents had skipped meals or reduced portion size so their children would have enough to eat, 28% had felt at some point they did not have enough food to feed their children and 17% were always worried about providing their children with enough food.
Barnardos is overwhelmingly in favour of hot school meals and would like to see the programme extended further within secondary schools. The benefits for children and parents we support do not stop once a child leaves primary school, and nor does child food insecurity.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Moffatt and all the witnesses. The Deputies and Senators will have six minutes to ask some questions. I ask the witnesses to please be aware that their responses will be eating into the member's six minutes. I call on Deputy Cummins.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank everyone very much for coming to the committee meeting. This programme is such an important provision in this country. I really look forward to us meeting the gold standard, but we are not there right now. I agree with the points that have been made regarding nutrition, the provision of it, nourishment, the fact that the programme is not fully universal yet and the necessity for having it in our schools.
The reason for making it universal is to ensure that those who really need it are never stigmatised because it is available to everybody. That is the model used in countries with the gold standard.
I have been working on this since I was elected as a TD. Many people have sent me photographs, which I will show the witnesses in a minute. As was said earlier, just filling a belly with something is not good enough because children are not going to be able to reach their potential. If we are going to give them rubbish food, they will have loads of energy and then go down again and be unable to learn to the level they are able to learn at.
Regarding portion sizes, the committee had the pleasure of visiting schools in Finland earlier this week and saw exactly how to tackle that. It involves providing lunches on site where possible. I know that is not possible for every school but that is what we should be aiming to do. We need to be retrofitting our schools, be it a cluster of schools or, as Dr. Allen said, providing it in community centres so that it deals with a local crèche, schools or meals on wheels and provides food that is healthy, nutritious, locally sourced and produced. That is what we have. We saw upper secondary schools in Finland with tall teenagers who were able to pick what they wanted. Students picked whatever they were going to eat. There was so little waste and it was nutritious and healthy. Nobody was turning up their nose at it and there was a vegetarian option and meat option. There was no fussiness and everybody was there. They all sat around together, chatted and relaxed over their meals. That is what we need. We have not got it to the stage it needs to be at. A lot needs to be done for us to get to where we need to be.
I will show the witnesses some photographs I have been sent. This vegetable is in a gloopy thing. It is not acceptable. I would not eat that. If we as adults would not eat this, why are we serving it to our children? I do not know what this is but it is all the same colour as is the container. This is not acceptable. How is that going to nourish a child? I do not get it. At least there are vegetables on this one but they look a bit overcooked. I am no chef. The container is edible as well but I would not eat any of it. That is not a hot school meal.
What I am saying is that we need to have the standard we have for other parts of our education system. If we want young people to succeed in their education, we need to provide them with nourishing food. I could probably talk for the whole six minutes because I am very passionate about this. If we do not get this right, we will do what they had to do in the UK, which is start the whole thing again. We have an opportunity. We know our start has been kind of okay. I have visited two schools in my constituency where the food is produced on site and is wonderful and so tasty but there are other schools in my constituency and throughout this country where meals are being produced with single-use containers and huge amounts of waste. There was so little waste in Finland. When we scraped off our food after eating, there was a tiny amount. Everything went back in and was washed by the students. They were not being served. They did that themselves, as they should do at home. What can we do in the short-to-medium term to bridge the gap until we are doing this correctly? What can we do immediately to remedy this until we have the long-term version of what we really want to see?
Holiday hunger is something I would have encountered when I worked in the school completion programme for decades. We saw that children would have lunch. It would not have been a hot school meal at that time, although that came in towards the end of my time there. In summertime, it fell on the school completion programme. Should that be funded through the Department of Social Protection? Who will mind that when schools are not there?
I am interested in the experience of other countries. I visited schools in Japan and saw the food and children serving other children. They did not have a facility to put it all together, so they made it in the classroom. What would fix things in the short-to-medium term until we get it right for the long term?
Dr. Naomi Feely:
What we find from our experience is that the school is one way they can do it. From the work we have done providing support for our members across Ireland, we know that facilities like family resource centres are close to the community and know the families that are in need of support. We would like to see a scheme where we would provide support for community and voluntary organisations to leverage their insight and expertise. We know they can do it. We have got really critical learning coming from that. In the appendix to our submission, we highlighted the pressure points in terms of food poverty occurring in families.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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The Cathaoirleach, the Leas-Chathaoirleach, a number of other members and I were in Finland until yesterday, so we saw one of the gold standards around the world as regards school meals in the sense that every child got to walk up to a buffet-style area where they chose how much they wanted and what they wanted. The options are not that varied but it is fairly nutritious food that is of a reasonable standard and is clearly not processed. I had rice with vegetables and meat, I could choose how much I ate and it was pretty healthy. It was a nice meal. That school had students who were the equivalent of junior infants up to leaving certificate, so it was a massive school.
We do not have those facilities in Ireland in practically any primary school. As we roll out the building of new primary schools, these must have a communal dining area for a number of reasons. Number one is the educational opportunity to sit down with children and talk about food, their food choices and how these choices affect their lives. The second reason is providing a place where there might be that buffet-style area. By the time a child gets to sixth class, one could have a boy of 5 ft 9 in. or 5 ft 10 in. sitting beside a boy of 3 ft and they are both getting the same portion sizes, which makes no sense. We need to address that. How do we bridge the gap in the meantime? What is the most effective way of providing that small level of choice where one might allow a child to dictate portion size to a certain extent because, in the case of some children, it is probably not enough while other children might be getting too much even in junior infants if every child across the entire school spectrum is getting the same portion size? What is the practical solution?
Ms Áine Lynch:
One of the things we need to address is the time children have to eat their lunch. If we are talking about a buffet-style lunch or even the idea of a queue, when we look at how long a child has to eat his or her lunch, then the lack of facilities is almost secondary to that. If we bring in all the facilities and tell children to go up and choose, the Senator will know from Finland that just going up and choosing would take most of a child's lunch time at the moment so that is a significant factor. The fact that children did not have time to eat their lunch was a factor before we had hot school meals, so we need to address that before we keep going forward with some of the other things we need. When we think of the time, putting a single-use container in front of a child with a pre-prepared meal is probably all one has time to do and even then, children are saying they do not have time to eat it, so time is a significant issue we need to address.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
If we are looking at age differentiation, children are in primary school for eight years and there is a significant difference between a four-year-old and a 12-year-old. We have ways of doing that. One of the things we did through the minimum essential standard of living research and the support of colleagues was to differentiate between those under 12 and those over 12 in respect of the child support payment. We have mechanisms to do that. It would be reasonable to have certain portions for those aged four to seven, seven to ten and ten to 12. We can do that. There are enough nutritionists in the country who can tell us what our nutritional needs are. That is the way to do it. There is precedent because we are doing it with the child support payment.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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It would be like age-appropriate guidelines on portion size.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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That is shocking.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
Of course, if there are students who do not eat it, then the sixth-years will and they would eat almost three of those meals. They are growing so they need a lot. Local centres, or the community, which Dr. Allen spoke of, are a solution. I am in the centre of Carlow. There are schools only down the road where meals are being made in the school that are of better quality than what we are getting. It is about schools working together. I think I am right in saying that under the funding model as it currently is, schools are being given the money and then they choose-----
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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If they go to tender. I will ask the NPC about the fact there is generally a parent representative on the board of management. When it comes to procurement, there is a space for parents to maybe have a stronger voice to insist on and be much more demanding about the quality of food that is procured. It is just one space.
I agree with Ms Lynch. We are having a larger debate with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, about the curriculum and the burden it places on timetabling in schools. I agree that the amount of time kids get to eat, and actually sit down and socialise, which is practically their only time all day to sit face to face and socialise, is very limited.
Ms Áine Lynch:
On the Senator's point about parents on boards of management, it needs to go further than that. Most schools have a parents' association. A lot of primary schools now have some level of student representation as well. It needs to go into that level of consultation before the board gets to consider those kinds of issues. It came through in our survey that parents and children were asking for a voice on menus.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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Would anyone else like to come in? We have about 30 seconds.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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I only have ten seconds. I do not have time to ask a second question. I thank you all.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses very much for coming in. The standard of the submissions is fantastic. The children's committee, which is taking place next door, is focusing on child poverty and deprivation, so I am really pleased there is so much of an emphasis on it this morning for our children.
It is important to look back briefly and say that this programme was introduced, only a handful of years ago, by Regina Doherty, when she was Minister for Social Protection. It was on a very small scale and was piloted to show how important it was. My God, we have shown how important it is. It has grown since then in a piecemeal fashion, with an additional budget every year expanding it to schools. Therefore, some of the decisions around the roll-out of it have been made in steps rather than leaps. The programme is not even ten years old and started from such a small base, but this is our opportunity to reform it and approach it from a good-better-best perspective. It is good that it has been introduced and so many children are benefiting from it, but it could be better. The committee has to set out what the best version of this is. Only by doing that will we get there, but it is going to take steps. We have to be realistic and say that these things take time.
Food poverty has to remain at the heart of it. The programme started as a food poverty initiative and that has to remain at the heart of it. Good nutrition is a foundation for life and is a relationship you have for life. It is important that it is taking place in our schools. The fact is we are moving towards universality. I agree that every child needs access to this in every community because you do not know. The parents, families and kids I meet talk about how their families struggled to fill a lunchbox when they were in school. It goes to the core of a child's upbringing and stays with them. We have to ensure food poverty is at the heart of this but let us remember that food poverty exists in every community, so universality also has to be at the heart of this.
To give the witnesses time to answer my question, from looking at the good-better-best model, what would they do now to make it better? What do they want us to do to make it best? That takes on board what was said about school canteens and this forming part of the ethos of the school in the same way it does in Finland and Japan because they are the gold standard. To help us get there by breaking it down, what are their priorities now and going forward?
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
For me, the nutritious aspect and having that at the forefront is the big issue. Currently, it is being delivered as a business model. The actual food is not being considered. It is all about distribution and getting it to the school and students as quick as possible, but it should be more about the nutritional benefits and making sure that every meal is nutritious.
I do not want to take too much time but the second issue is sustainability concerns. Meals are being delivered in single-use metal boxes, like Chinese takeaway containers, with wooden forks and everything. We are trying to discourage that, yet children are seeing those boxes being brought in every day. I just think it does not-----
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is too disposable.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
One of the things I am concerned about is we know that secondary school children have the greatest need. Both nutritionally and educationally, they have huge burdens on them. We also know through the MESL research that only 64% of essential needs for children who are dependent on social protection are met. That is a massive issue. Older children are the ones most likely to experience food poverty and food hunger. It is essential that we consider a roll-out to second level children.
There has also been a massive increase in the lack of school completion at that age group. It has gone up exponentially since Covid. That would be a way of getting children into school. We have heard from families. Some of our members talk about families who are not sending their children into school because they do not have the lunch or bus fare, so children are staying at home. If there were a nutritious meal for that child to get there, it would encourage school completion.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Excellent point.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
We know significant work is under way with the interdepartmental working group. It is doing some very focused work with nutritionists in looking at the guidelines, which is important. We need to look at whether the rates are high enough. We need to ensure we are not having a race to the bottom. We want to see, with the rates that are being applied, how we can develop a nutritional meal for children. We need to see a strong evidence base on what is happening. The National Parents Council received a significant survey response, but it is also about looking at those inspections the Department of Social Protection is doing to highlight what the real concerns are around not sticking with the menu's nutritional aspects.
Ms Áine Lynch:
An audit of what is currently happening is important. A survey is useful, but it is actually about getting factually what is currently happening. It is simple things. A lot of children said to us they would have eaten something but did not because it was "next to". Anybody who has worked with or has children will know that because it was "next to" or had sauce over it, they did not eat anything. We are talking about children. We need to have children at the heart of how we develop the next stage of this.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That was really helpful. Thank you.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I thank everybody for coming in. When we first went through this committee's agenda, and I saw hot school meals coming up five or six times, I wondered whether we really needed to spend that much time discussing it. Now I think we need to spend even more time on it. There have been so many discussions on social media, on radio and at the committee on hot school meals. Some of the language we are getting back is very different and very conflicting. I will give an example. Last week, we had the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association, Education and Training Boards Ireland, the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools and the management bodies of schools before the committee. Overwhelmingly, they said that this is a good programme. Their concerns were about the administrative burden on the schools. Mr. Stephen Moffatt said:
The parents we support are overwhelming happy with the hot school meals provided to their children and repeatedly state they and their children experience significant benefits as a result of their introduction, while staff see significant value for children they are working with.
That is similar to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. With respect to Dr. Allen, the hot school meals programme is not fit for purpose.
We are so different in what we are saying. Dr. Allen quoted France, but they have had the programme for 15 years. Dr. Allen quoted the Isle of Man, where they have had it for 20 years, and she quoted the UK and they have had it for over 50 years. As my colleague Deputy Currie has said, we are just really starting on this. It started six years ago with 36 schools in a pilot programme. Now we have it available to 3,200 schools with 550,000 students. So, fair play that we have that and that children are actually getting a meal. Now it is time to fine tune it, as the witnesses are all saying, in terms of the nutrition and the packaging. I have a daughter who absolutely hates one piece of food touching the other piece of food. We were in a restaurant recently and she was eating chicken goujons and she had gravy on the potato and she said, "Where do I put the ketchup so that does not hit off the gravy?" Some people do not want everything mushed up in a package. That was a very good point.
I have two questions, bearing in mind what I have just said. First of all, do we feel we are getting value for money from the suppliers that are currently putting the food into schools? I believe it is around €3.20 the suppliers are getting for each of these portions. What measurable outcome will determine whether the hot school meals programme is considered a success in five years' time? If we are all sitting around here again in five years' time, and please God all of us here will be re-elected and we are all sitting here, what is the measurable outcome there? The witnesses have plenty of time to answer now.
Ms Áine Lynch:
To the Senator's point, we can already say it is a success to go from where we were to where we are now. I was part of a campaign group for hot school meals in schools and I never thought, without the facilities, that we would get to a point so quickly. I think there is already a level of success. It is about how we then improve it. The improvements we want to make are, as we have been saying, to remove ultra processed food from it, and to have a situation where children have time to sit, socialise and eat food and for it be a positive part of the day. We were already hearing in our survey that children are trying food they have never tried before. These are really positive things that are coming from it, but until we address the time issue and the nutritional value, we cannot really move it much further forward.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I do not disagree with Ms Lynch on the time issue. I do wonder is this part of the contribution to the waste that we are seeing. I am a mammy and I have two kids aged ten and 11. I give them what I feel is a fairly nutritious lunch. My school, bear in mind, does not have the hot school meals programme yet but it is getting it. Sometimes, or a lot of times, some of the lunches are coming home. A lot of times it is the fruit that comes back but they say, "We just did not have time." In my day we brought our lunch out to the yard, ate it and then played. Now they must eat it first and then go out to play. They are all dying to get out to play-----
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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-----so they are rushing the food. I feel that with the hot school meals it is even harder because of the portion size and because it is a hot school meal.
Mr. Stephen Moffatt:
I would reinforce what Ms Lynch has said that it has already been a success but the potential here is absolutely enormous. The comments by Dr. Allen and me are not antagonistic, it is just where we think improvement can go now. Initially, our focus was on parents and a supporting focus on getting food and whether it is something that is positive in their lives as opposed to a constant stress. That needs to be enforced. A lot of times food is a constant stress so the opportunity here is that it is not and that it is a positive thing. This is one of the things that over the years-----
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Yes, we have a great opportunity.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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We heard last week that 54% of children in certain schools were more likely to stay after lunch now because they are getting a hot school meal. It is just sad and great to think that it is having that type of impact.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
I echo some of what Mr. Moffatt has said. We do have to look at the cause of this and it is deprivation. We do absolutely want nutritious meals for children but there are high levels of deprivation out there. The Central Statistics Office data that came out on deprivation just before Christmas showed that 49% of children in one-parent households are experiencing enforced deprivation. We need that roll-out but obviously we want to improve it and make sure that it is nutritious.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Brilliant. In my ten remaining seconds, are we getting value for money at the moment at €3.20 per child, yes or no?
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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And it goes down in secondary school.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
We need more research on that . When we are looking at the nutritional guidelines and whether schools are complying, we need to find out why they are not able to comply with nutritional guidelines. If food is not nutritional, is there an issue that we are not giving a sufficient amount of money to the portion, or whatever? As the other witnesses have said, it is really important that we look at what portions we are giving to children from different ages.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We might refrain from asking yes or no questions with four seconds to go and the whole panel answering.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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It was just supposed to be a "Yes" or "No" reaction on it.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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The committee will have officials in shortly from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, I believe on 4 February, to discuss the new primary school curriculum. The issue of having adequate lunch time can be addressed with the officials at that meeting. That is something this committee can commit to.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe as ucht a bheith anseo inniu for this very important debate. I have experience of the hot school meals programme both as a múinteoir and as a parent. Some of the big things that struck me, and which really bothered me as a teacher, was the waste: not just the food waste but the single use. That really affected me. We were sending additional meals to the senior classes so that they would eat because they wanted more because the portion sizes were inadequate. When I had infants, the older kids would eat, so there was maybe a little bit less food waste. The single use waste really stood out for me. Another point that stuck with me as a teacher was the lack of time for these children to eat their meal, especially when I had infants. That definitely did contribute to waste. I would try to teach an oral language lesson at the same time but I do not think that is appropriate because then it is affecting them in eating. I had to start lunchtime ten minutes earlier than we would usually start. Even at that, it was not enough time. I taught in a Gaelscoil so I would use it. I would have the clár bán on and we would go through Irish language and it was just additional. The kids would come up and they would play games as they were eating. I do not know if that worked. Was I impacting the children? Were they focused on the games and the language and not eating? They did not have enough time. My thoughts are that maybe it should be tacked on to the SPHE lesson. Can we incorporate it into the SPHE lesson? Perhaps we could look at that. Educate Together representatives were in last week suggesting having school gardens for communal eating. It would impact on those points if we had it tacked on to OSPS. That is what I wanted to do but I just never found the best way to do it.
As a parent a huge issue was that my son would not eat any of the food, so I struggled with the concept. We want each child to have a hot meal every day, but if we have some children who are picky eaters, they are not getting that hot meal. I would send in a lunch for him. They were the big things that stood out for me.
What I have very little experience with is the holiday hunger. We have a community centre in Kildare town called Teach Dara and they do fantastic work. They do food banks and I know they are helping. I would love to hear more about holiday hunger and what are the best ways to tackle this during the holidays. Is it more appropriate for the children to come into schools even during the holidays for these meals? Should we remove funding for programmes that are already there for the summer and tack it on to our hot meals programme to continue that within the school? What learnings from the community and the volunteer sector can be applied here? Perhaps the witnesses can speak to that a little.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
Yes. In budget 2025 we saw two pilot programmes funded. One looked at schools' July provision and providing hot meals through that means. This was one measure that was really welcome. It involved collaboration between the Department of Social Protection and the Department of education. The second pilot programme looked at providing meals in UBU youth services.
It is very much targeted towards children and young people who would be attending those services, which is a targeted approach to youth services. From our experience with our members, it is going to vary depending on the group of children within the community. We know that some of the services we have supported are supporting families in homeless accommodation. One of the biggest issues that came up was around domestic violence, where families have maybe left domestic violence situations and are now living in refuge. They may not have access to financial resources to go out and purchase food. By providing them with support through vouchers, it was empowering them and giving them autonomy back to go out and purchase the food they needed around Christmas time in particular. There are huge drivers of food poverty and different ways to support it. We do not think we should just be looking at one-size-fits-all. We really need a nuanced approach. Organisations such as Barnardos and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will know the families needing support. We also have very complex situations where there could be something in a family around addiction or mental health issues. There could be a triggering life event that really pushes a family back. The budget that people can kind of manage, or that is a bit more flexible, is their food budget. They can pare it back so much that they may not have sufficient resources in their house to feed their family. We think it is really important that if we are providing this additional support through holiday hunger programmes as well, we are not just looking at that as the solution. We need that combined with measures in other areas, such as making sure that social welfare rates correspond to a minimum essential standard of living, and that people have access to housing that is affordable. We need to look at all of these things collectively, and really look at the response tailored to each community.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Would that mean change in the quality of the food?
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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We witnessed when we were away that teachers were eating the same meals. I did try the food at school when my son would not eat it and we did have to make----
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. Go raibh maith agaibh.
Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I want to start with questions on the universal nature of the programme. It is something that is thrown at us so much when we talk about hot school meals, particularly on social media. I posted a video to TikTok last week, which was just an update on the questions I was asking. Johnny responded. Johnny does not have a picture, he has a private profile, he has no likes and no posts. Johnny wanted to know are we going to feed the children during the holidays and how many died of starvation during the summer holidays. Peter was obviously very interested in Johnny's nuanced viewpoint on all things childhood nutrition. Peter asked Johnny to tell us how many and Johnny said zero. It is an example of what we are getting here, questions about why we are giving it to all children, that all children do not need it and only a few need it and why are we wasting so much money. While I appreciate Johnny might not have the most informed view of poverty among certain sections of society, children going to school hungry, or how many are going hungry, the witnesses are a very good group to explain to us why this should or should not be a universal scheme. Perhaps Johnny can learn something from it, too.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
That is a really strong point. We do need to look at why we want universality. The main reason is we do not want children stigmatised and excluded from school. School is the most foundational part of their life. It is the route out of poverty for many of them. It is a matter of making sure their educational experiences are as welcoming and inclusive as possible. I was speaking to somebody yesterday who talked about going into a DEIS school where food was being served. It was not served to every child because it was a second-level school. The school identified who needed free school meals and they got a yellow ticket to go up and collect food. No teenager is going to go up with a yellow ticket to get a free school meal. That is what we are doing. We are trying to make sure every child gets that attainment. That is the most important driver to make sure a school is inclusive. We have to make sure it happens.
I saw some of the social media commentary about the appearance last week. A journalist had said something along the lines of why are we feeding every child for the 1% of children who are actually hungry. That is so untrue. The most recent health study on health and social skills in children showed that 18% of children have experienced going to school hungry, and that was back in 2022 before the cost-of-living crisis. We do not know who those children are. We cannot just go into the school and identify them. It is more important that every child has that access to food. I do not know how the Deputy gets through to the likes of Johnny but the facts are that it is 18% of children who are going to school hungry, not 1% as was said. I am very strongly of the opinion that if we are serving those extra 82% of children and making it inclusive, it is well worth it.
Mr. Stephen Moffatt:
It is also worth pointing out that this is not the only universalism. The public will talk about this in terms of universalism but it does not talk about access to GP care, which is universal under a certain age although at an older age it is more targeted. Similarly, child benefit is universal. There is a very important place for universalism and for children growing up in schools, where they see that, it is exceptionally important for them that it is non-stigmatising. For the children who are beneficiaries, but also the other children who are growing up and seeing the benefits of a very important programme, which is going to have so many potential benefits for society in terms of children's nutrition, their engagement with food and all that, it is crucial that all the children are accessing the same amount and there are not children being excluded. We have seen across our services that there is a need for very targeted measures in some areas. There is a need for targeted universalism, where there are specific areas of disadvantage. In the area of children's food and nutrition, there is no reason it would not be universal in terms of all the benefits it is going to have. We see it across our services that where services and programmes are targeted, children can be somewhat excluded as a result, and there is hesitancy around it. We can only speak to the benefits of that.
Ms Áine Lynch:
We also have to ask why people are making those comments. In our survey, a few parents also raised the question of universality. We need to address that because otherwise there will always be people fighting that sense. When we look at some of the comments that came with the question about universality, it really spoke to the pressures on the education budget. It was not that they did not think all children should be provided with a hot school meal. It was the sense that we do not have enough of this or that either, and they were asking if this is the best way. We need to pick that apart a little bit. Somebody else mentioned the issue of how we would decide which child needs it and which child does not. We have children living in all different areas and around the country that you would think have very wealthy families but families go through crisis at different times in their lives. To try to have to publicly say that is a stigma we should not put any family or child through. The stigma goes to the fact that we just could not tell who needs it and who does not.
Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I had other questions but I did not expect that one to go on as long. The witnesses are addressing something that we really need addressed because it is coming up time and time again. We will see if I can get back in later. I have another committee meeting to go to as well. I thank them.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We expect to have another round of questions. Deputy O'Rourke is next.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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As an Opposition politician, in some of my own analysis I did wonder about that point in terms of the opportunity cost and the big spend on this. I am convinced and the witnesses' case is a very compelling one for the importance of universality. It is very well made. It is an additional benefit of having these hearings. I want to ask about the importance of extending the scheme to second level and how they would like that done as quickly as possible but also in terms of phasing. On the nutritional value, the importance of cooking from scratch and the time to spend with food, we can raise this with the NCCA, but how do they see the issues that have to be squared there?
It seems to me that this is essentially a significant cultural shift, not just for this programme but for education and how our children spend their day. It relates to their relationship with food and maybe the environment, too. The witnesses might answer those two questions please.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
I will answer on the importance of extending the programme to second level schools. The evidence shows that children in older age groups are the ones most in deprivation. There is clear evidence in that regard. If we had started this from scratch, we would have advocated to start with the nutritional needs of second level students because we know that is where the most poverty in childhood lies. We would have also talked about the nutritional needs and additional demands on anyone in second level. They usually have to travel more and go to places farther away. Their school day could start when they leave the house at 7.30 a.m. and they might not arrive home until 5.30 p.m. or 6 p.m. That is a long portion of the day. On top of that, when they come home, they have huge demands because they will compete in a meritocratic leaving certificate, although it is not meritocratic when some children receive grinds from expensive schools and others are sitting with a rumbling tummy. Extending the programme to where there is the most demand is absolutely crucial and essential. If we had based the decision on evidence, we would have started there and gone backwards.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Does anyone else wish to come in on that point about secondary schools?
Dr. Naomi Feely:
I agree with Ms Bayliss. A progressive, universal approach is needed. We could possibly look at DEIS schools and then expand outward. The good thing about the hot school meals programme to date is that it has shown what we can do over multiple budget cycles to address child poverty. There was very much an incremental roll-out of the scheme over a number of years.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Dr. Feely mentioned the need for a progressive, universal approach. I presume she hopes that the end point, where the programme is across all secondary schools, will not be too far away but her point is that it should be done on a phased basis if necessary.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Would Dr. Feely like the full expansion to be achieved during this Dáil term?
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Spending time with the meal is obvious, but how does that work when there are a range of other issues to consider in how a school or school day is run?
Ms Áine Lynch:
The elephant in the room is that the only way to get more time is to make the school day longer. I know that is not a popular thing to say but the school day is crammed as it is. The NCCA came here but we were very involved in the consultations around the curriculum. In the context of the amount people now want in the curriculum and all the different things that schools now cover in the curriculum, doing less maths or literacy is not a feasible idea. The Deputy's point about trying to mix it in with a lesson, while innovative, will not work. I refer to trying to do a lesson while children are concentrating on their meals. There is a social aspect to eating that is important. Even if you say you are going to do social, personal and health education, SPHE, five days per week and it is all going to be-----
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Lynch is saying that the idea of blending it in in some way is limited potentially-----
Ms Áine Lynch:
We know a lot of teachers who do that and they say it is the best they can do but they are really struggling. It does not work for children because they are trying to eat a meal. They want to talk to their friends and their eyes are going out to the playground and then they are trying to do a lesson as well. It is innovative in what we have at the moment but I do not think it is a long-term solution to the time issue.
Dr. Darina Allen:
There is no point in spending €330 million unless the food is nourishing and delicious and children want to eat it. That is the first thing.
In respect of the Deputy’s point about integrating the food with the rest of the subjects, there is a brilliant example in California and right across many schools in America, namely, the Edible Schoolyard Project, where food is integrated into every single subject, be it history, geography, science, maths or anything. It can be done and it builds on what the Deputy said. It is working brilliantly. It is worth looking at.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
It is important that we give time. There might be a cultural aspect to this. I apologise because this point could be long. Children are being rushed trying to eat at school and then they might be rushing when dining at home as they rush out to do sport, etc. That cultural aspect could have a negative effect on their social skills and talking to others around food. It should be about enjoying food and sitting down for a meal, rather than eating at a table and then rushing home to have dinner and rushing out the door again.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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More continental, maybe.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We could learn from that in this House because I went for breakfast at 9.20 a.m. and I am only after running down here. Maybe we will have to start enjoying our meals.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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The Chair is taking notes.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Yes. I had the healthy option.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The witnesses are most welcome. This is an engaging and useful exercise. Last week, we had representatives of the schools before the committee who spoke about the impact of this programme. One of the things that repeatedly came up last week was issues for schools around resources to be able to deal with and manage the hot school meals. There was a lot of talk about facilities, whether adequate or inadequate. There was an emphasis on the time it takes to distribute the hot school meals when they come to the schools. Teachers were finding that they were becoming caterers instead of teachers. There was the whole debate around food waste and, of course, packaging waste.
It is fair to say that this programme came about to fix a social problem where children were identified as going to school hungry. Today, we find that there are 682,000 children and 3,700 schools benefiting from this scheme. That is some logistical nightmare. I am a strong advocate for quality, nutritional food, but I would love to get to where Dr. Allen is at and achieve the delicious part for everyone, too. That is probably where we need to get to. We have come quite a distance in the context of what we have done.
I am taken by the contribution of the Barnardos representatives. They said that families are overwhelmingly happy with the scheme. I am curious whether they are overwhelmingly happy that the scheme is in place or with the quality of the scheme. That is a question about which I am curious. I am sure every one of the witnesses is very happy that we are trying to target an area that needed to be managed because of the issues with school children attending school hungry, but the witnesses from Barnardos might take the point I have raised as a matter of interest. We all like the concept but I wish to know whether parents are happy with the concept or with the standards of the scheme.
Mr. Stephen Moffatt:
Generally, from visiting our services across the country and chatting to staff and parents, when this comes up, the response is fantastic. Parents say, “Thank God for them.”. The school meals are brilliant for all those reasons outlined earlier. Some staff said that certain children would have gone hungry otherwise.
Interestingly, from chatting to principals recently, they said that previously, they were able to identify children involved in social work and things like that. They were able to identify children and note stuff to bring up with social workers because they had brought nothing in for a couple of days. They cannot do that now because those children have food and are guaranteed to get something.
Parents generally are just happy that there is a service. When I say "overwhelming", that is the response that comes out. Are there issues that parents still have with it? Yes, absolutely. They are not saying this is the best thing ever or that there cannot be big improvements. Initially, however, when you start talking to them and this topic comes up, the response is that the scheme is brilliant. It saves them time and financially, and it saves them from stress. Parents are able to sit down with their child and pick out the food for the week. They can chat about it and have a bit of a laugh, whereas previously they were so stressed about what they were going to do to feed their children that day because it is a constant. Even with regard to families who are not struggling as much financially, it is still just a constant.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I love the concept of schools meals made from locally produced and locally sourced produce. That would be a fantastic model, although maybe difficult to achieve. I would aspire to such a school meals programme. Until that day, though it may be a long way off, every school should have the facilities to do in-house food preparation, meal production and service. That is where we need to get to.
Interestingly, as we were having this conversation, one of my colleagues in Galway County Council sent me a message earlier to say that the service in Connemara schools had been withdrawn because the provider withdrew from the contract, which is a problem. I anticipate that elements of the cost to produce food, transport it and so on make it quite an economic challenge for providers.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
I will make a parallel point, as I have given this issue some thought. We are giving money to private providers and a similar situation is happening in the provision of child care. The Government gives significant core funding to child care providers but accompanying that is an increase in public management of those services. Their accounts are examined to see if the funding is enough, and when child care providers want to increase their fees, a very robust process is applied. Are there learnings from that that could be applied to what is happening on the ground in this situation? We need to understand the costs involved and how much funding is being provided. We need to ensure that there is value for money and that children get food of good nutritional quality.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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It is better not to have it than to have it only for it to be withdrawn. That is the dilemma in which the people who live in Connemara find themselves and it is a difficult situation.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Members will have another opportunity to come back in.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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No, we are all together now.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Hang in there. We will have another round of questions. It is my turn now, which is why I tried to allow myself as much time as possible.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Can I ring the bell?
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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When we initially spoke about hot school meals, we wondered how many sessions would be enough but the more we hear from witnesses, the more important it is to have more of these engagements and sittings because we can hear opinions that really matter.
To give a perspective on where we have come from, when the pilot project report was completed in 2020, 68% of respondents said that the quality of the dinners was better than what was in their lunchboxes before that, and 30% of them said that the dinners were of a much higher quality of nutrition. In 2023, 83% wanted the school meals programmes extended to all schools, which was a finding of the independent evaluation, which has been mentioned, and 82% supported the universal provision of hot meals. We have come an awful long way. Last year alone, 682,000 students received school dinners. The programme has been very successful but we are right to want to refine it, make it better and get a return on the investment that the Department of Social Protection is making in the scheme.
The National Parents Council conducted a survey and I love the way it has been presented. As a parent of two primary school children, I have seen the lunchboxes. Deputy Cummins had some pictures that she displayed. I was delighted to see broccoli in them because I always wonder where the broccoli is, as it is such an easy food to cook and put in a lunchbox. It retains its nutritional value as long as it is not overcooked.
On the issue of portion sizes and students having enough time to eat, I was a member of the delegation that travelled to Finland. First and foremost, we sampled the school meal. I did not know at the time that we could take as much as we wanted, so I took the student portion, but it was very nutritional. The choice was very limited and simple, in that there was a vegetarian option and a meat option. As we have spoken about already, there is a 15-minute break for every 45-minute lesson in Finland. As has been mentioned today, we need to create a longer school day. The principal told us that the children were a little bit wild that morning, yet we walked into a calm, tranquil room.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We told the principal that if they went to a school in Ireland, they would know what having that built up day was like. I think that students had a more productive time due to having breaks and the time to digest their food. This comes back to the stigmatisation of it all. There is a social aspect to having the time to eat together. Another thing, although we have not mentioned it yet, was that everybody at the school we visited was eating off a plate.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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The children got a social lesson by eating food on a plate while engaging with their peers. At every engagement we have had on this particular subject, we have mentioned waste and the environmental impact, and the lack of facilities in our schools. When I walk into some supermarkets and commercial stores, I see portable buffet units and I think of the waste management and portion control of suppliers. I know we have some suppliers in attendance. In the case of schools, suppliers can send in vacuum-packed bags, the contents are poured into the mobile buffet units, the school monitors how many units they need, and students take what they want. I think of the benefits, the lesson and the social element of that. We had secondary school footballers taking big plates of food and then we had five-year-olds and six-year-olds just taking a small bit. As they were dishing it out themselves, there was not a huge capital requirement for staff on this element. There was somebody monitoring it. One of the witnesses mentioned the impact of repeatedly reheating this food and how that would not be done in commercial situations or other environments. Sometimes, we overcomplicate these things when there are very simple solutions. Even while we are waiting to introduce the programme to second level and while we have not undertaken the school infrastructure to develop kitchens, these mobile units could reduce costs an awful lot and provide a social benefit. I would love to hear the thoughts of the witnesses in one minute and five seconds, if they would not mind.
Ms Áine Lynch:
Mobile units are a great idea. We always try to reach the gold standard and wait until we can get there but there is so much innovation in catering that happens in Ireland. Look at all the conference catering and everything like that where a much higher standard of food is delivered because people would not accept a lower standard. Therefore, we need to learn from the catering industry and apply to what we currently can do in a school, not what we need to do with retrofitting and building, although we will get their eventually. We must invite catering specialists in and ask them how to provide food in a school environment. The time element is an issue if the Leas-Chathaoirleach is talking about socialising.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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These companies are already investing in ovens in the schools. They are already investing in this packaging. There is potential for a better return in the long run.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
Yes, it can be done. I am in a home economics room in the kitchen and cook lovely meals with students. They love fresh meals. If I have time, we will sit down and eat our meals off a plate. It can be done. Why do we need to go to such extremes of using ultra-processed food being delivered and having long supply chains when we can do it in the schools?
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We will have time to come back but I must be fair, and I pulled everyone else up at this time. I call Senator Pauline Tully.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, agus fáilte roimh go léir. I thank all of the groups for their presentations and common themes have emerged in terms of the benefits of the hot school meals programme. For example, the programme allows many families to save money and it is universal and non-stigmatised. Some families that can afford to purchase food do not always make the right choices. The school meals programme is an opportunity to recognise the importance of learning about nutrition, food preparation and food production because it is education for life. We know of the damage that over-processed foods do to people, we talk about the levels of obesity, etc. Indeed, children eating too much food containing colourants and stuff makes them hyper and affects their ability to learn.
I worked as a secondary school teacher in a DEIS school for many years. Before the hot school meals programme was introduced a few years ago, there was a canteen and we provided meals on site, using proper plates and cutlery. Students had to purchase their food but it was at a reduced price. There was also a mechanism whereby the home school liaison officer, a year head or a tutor could identify students who needed a meal. They would get it for nothing, but there was no stigma attached because nobody knew who was or was not paying.
The only problem with that is somebody could be missed. The fact this programme is universal is beneficial and ensures nobody is missed. The school has over 900 students now and, unfortunately, since the hot school meals programme was introduced the same crew is not producing the meals now. It is open to a company and the quality of the food has deteriorated. When I talked to the principal about this she said she knew the quality was not great but when she put it out to tender only one company tendered for the production. The food that is being produced is, in a lot of cases, food that the students take in their hand and walk around with. I suppose it is a time issue as well. It is unfortunate that it has gone backwards almost. Part of that is maybe because of the money that was being offered; I am not sure.
Some of my colleagues were saying it is only early in the scheme but that begs the question why not get it right from the start when there are so many other countries we can look at and ask how they are doing it properly. When I go into a supermarket to purchase food I find that fresh fruit and vegetables are by far the cheapest item in the supermarket so there is no reason we cannot produce nutritious meals at a low cost if the will is there. It could be done in a proper way.
Another primary school that also had DEIS status was able to provide, at the time, locally made fresh sandwiches, fruit and milk. Now that the hot school meals have been introduced, they find it is not working as well. We need to look at different options. This is the time when we need to get it right and not wait for years to change it.
Dr. Allen talked about the community hub. That is something we need to be looking at in much more detail, where food can be produced in a community for number of different reasons using fresh, local produce and supplying the schools but also other centres that need it as well.
I have heard about rushing meals in schools from students who have been told by teachers they need to finish up and go out and play, and they would not have finished half their meal. We need to look at a way we can prolong the lunchtime and make it so the students are getting more nutritional food and also getting the time to socialise and learn about the food production as well.
A lot of what I have said has also been said by others. There is a lot of commonality. If anybody wants to make a comment on it, they are very welcome.
Dr. Darina Allen:
The Duhallow Community Food Services initiative that I mentioned earlier is a community-based model which is proven, scalable and adaptable nationwide. If it were properly resourced, it could channel €330 million in public funding back into urban and rural communities, supporting farmers, producers, small businesses and families across Ireland. It can be done.
Ms Áine Lynch:
Going back to the audit, we know from the survey that some parents are saying the food they got was of good quality and that the children are saying that. If we did a national audit, because there are some people using the same amounts of money to produce something very different from others, those examples where things are working well would come through it. We will all have anecdotes, but we need a national audit of what is happening, what the levels of highly processed foods are, where areas are doing it without high processed foods and how are they doing it. We can only look at whether the amount we are spending on it is enough when we actually have that data. We must be data-driven with it.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
I agree with Ms Lynch's point that it has to be data driven. It is also very worrying to hear that one caterer is pulling out of the contract. That must be examined. Senator Tully said that only one company tendered for it so there is obviously a question around funding. If we look at the DEIS model for second level, those businesses are only getting €2.20 to provide a hot meal for a teenager whereas it is €3.20 for a primary school child. The whole funding model obviously is a major issue. One of the things we worry about, as was said, is that food is provided and suddenly it is not feasible from a financial point of view for caterers to continue doing it. We need to do the audit, base our decision on that evidence and make sure that funding is adequate so schools are not left saying the only providers that can and will do it are giving ultra-processed food.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Tully. We have sufficient time to have a second round of questioning. We will allocate four minutes to each Deputy and Senator for their second round of questioning.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chair. I thank the witnesses for the presentations. I unfortunately missed most of them as I came late from another committee. I saw a lot of changes over the 34 years I spent teaching as a primary teacher. It was very heartening to see the school meals being brought in. My party was campaigning for years for something similar to what was happening in England. It is very clear there is a lot of food poverty at the moment. However, from speaking to principals at schools I have seen there is a complete overhaul needed with the model. One thing relates to the extra workload on principals administering the scheme. The other is the actual quality of the food, as has been outlined. Some of the food is highly processed. It is sent out to companies in terms of procurement. I would love to see locally sourced, quality food from the locality. That would greatly help local businesses.
I was looking at how things are done in Japan. They seem to have their house in order. It is really good quality food, served on a plate. It is a very social gathering. The children are preparing the food and cleaning up after themselves, as well as cleaning the school and cleaning all aspects of the school. A lot of people in the western world would be shocked to see it. We could learn a huge amount from their system rather than sourcing out to corporate groups.
The funding is minimal. I spoke to a principal and he showed me the school accounts. Despite the low quality of the food coming into the school, the amount of money they got for the school meals was the equivalent of all other funding. There was within just €1,000 of a difference. I think there was something like €200,000 for the school meals for the year and the school got something like €201,000 or €199,000 for all other running costs in the school put together. It was unbelievable.
A large amount of food ends up in the bin because a lot of the children do not want the food. The principal says he has to give it to all children because they do not want anyone to be stigmatised or singled out. There is a huge waste. It is not of great quality. I have seen that there are a lot of pupils complaining about it. That is not to say the idea of school meals is not absolutely brilliant. It is essentially needed but there is a big overhaul required in terms of the funding, the administration and the quality and in terms of tying in with local businesses, local food producers and locally grown and sourced food. That is what we need to see, a bit like what happens in Japan and other countries.
I have noticed at second level a lot of children are skipping their meals. There is a bit of an obsession with protein. I have recently discovered this. It is not necessarily getting the real protein that many of us would have gotten traditionally from eating meals. We would say to a child if they eat their meals they will get their protein. Unfortunately, I have seen through TikTok and various social media that there is an obsession with protein in the last year. I have spotted it in supermarkets and there is a big slogan "protein" emblazoned on everything. It may be very low quality protein but the children growing into teenagers are obsessed with going to the gym, especially young boys aged 13, 14 or 15 who think they are getting high-protein food from supermarket bars or whatever or in the local gym there may be a shop selling supplements that says they are high in protein, rather than getting it from proper meals the way people would always have gotten protein. That definitely needs to be looked at and maybe educated through the schools. Children are being brainwashed by social-media driven corporations that are pushing this, rather than getting back to basics and have people eating natural, healthy food the same as what people used to eat in Ireland maybe 50 years ago. Has the committee any thoughts on that?
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I ask Mr. Carrigan to be very quick. The Deputy's time is up. It is not like the Dáil.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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My apologies, Chair. I did not realise. I would love to get some thoughts on it.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
We have a great opportunity in this programme, as we roll it out in secondary schools, to educate students about nutrition. Home economics should be a mandatory subject at junior level to counteract what the Deputy was talking about in regard to these fads, such as protein. There are always fads going around. Low fat used to be the thing and now protein is the thing. Home economics education for all at junior certificate level and even in primary school is really important to counteract that.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I think so, yes. Does Dr. Allen have a view?
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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If Dr. Allen would like, she can give a ten- or 20-second response.
Dr. Darina Allen:
There is also the opportunity to educate children on food waste and not wasting food. When I was a child, it was not an option. This might be quite controversial but we should also at least say what we do with the food waste. In a programme we have, we sent a chicken coop and two hens to nine local schools. The kids would then feed the waste from the school lunches - this was before the free school meals thing - to the hens. They then saw that it came back as eggs a few days later. The manure went onto a compost heap in the school garden to make compost that would go back onto the soil to make the soil more fertile and make more delicious, nutritious food. The circular economy is an incredible and very important lesson.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I agree 100%. I thank Dr. Allen.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I will now revert to Deputy Jen Cummins for four minutes. That includes the response.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for the reminder. It has been fascinating to have the witnesses in with the depth of knowledge they have and the discussion we have had. I really agree with regard to the education piece that needs to happen around food and nutrition. Last week, we heard from school management bodies where that is happening and it is so beneficial. As an aside, my husband teaches cooking and nutrition in prisons here and also to people in the community. It is really important. We have got adults who are learning this for the first time. I completely agree with Mr. Carrigan. Home economics needs to be a mandatory subject. It is a life skill we need forever and ever. Anytime in the school completion programme, when we had cooking classes going on for students, they were full. They were in and attendance improved, so I really agree with that.
I disagree with Ms Lynch with regard to making the school day longer. Finland has made the day quite short and schools do not have any more than five classes or lessons per day because children are being overloaded with the amount of information. Some of the stuff we are teaching them is not as practical as the things they need to learn, which is about nutrition, food, where we get eggs from, where the carrots come from and all those sorts of things. That movement is part is so important and sitting down socially. I would love to hear more and give the rest of my time over. As we know, I can talk quite a lot but I would love to hear if there is anything the witnesses have not had an opportunity to say. Could they please use these two minutes to say it now?
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Yes, absolutely.
Ms Áine Lynch:
I made the comment on the school day in the context of the current way forward with the curriculum, which is that we are trying to include everything. If we continue with approach to the curriculum, then it is the only way to have enough time to eat. The other issue we maybe have not mentioned enough in regard to hot school meals is the link to childhood obesity. It has been touched on but with regard to the obesity task force, I have sat before a joint Oireachtas committee on childhood obesity. We have a huge problem in Ireland around childhood obesity and if we are now saying we are working towards hot school meals for all children - that is one meal for five days - we should be addressing that and very strategically trying to address that through the hot school meals programme as well.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
I was going to make a point on infrastructure. A lot of schools do not have the infrastructure to cook meals, etc. or have a canteen space but we did have a big debate last year or the year before when we had the big windfall from the Apple tax case and there was an additional €13 billion to €14 billion for the Exchequer that was to be spent on one-off capital funding. In those discussions, we did not talk about children. We did not talk about increasing capital spending for childcare facilities. We could be thinking about how we could use that money to retrofit schools or provide them with capital funding to enable them to create these spaces. In general, we need to be thinking more about a child-centred approach across all government spending, not just current spending but where we are thinking about big infrastructure projects.
Dr. Darina Allen:
It all goes back to the fact that feeding children nutrient-dense food needs to be looked on as an absolute priority for the future of Ireland Inc. apart from anything else. In the end, this has to be a political decision. It has to be accepted that it is so serious that this has to be where we draw a line.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses. I really appreciate it.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I have something I want to talk about on the time for lunches but on the food traceability that was mentioned, my husband and I have an activity centre. When the HSE comes in and checks our sheets, all the time, we have to put down the packaging it comes from, even if we buy a packet of ham somewhere and we are using it for sandwiches. We write down when we got it, what brand we used and what date we used it. Traceability is really important so I am disappointed to hear that it is difficult to get from some suppliers. I know Dr. Allen has a company that supplies food. Does her company supply-----
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Does it supply any food to the hot school meals programme?
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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That was my next question. In regard to the story Dr. Allen just told there about the chickens, it is fabulous to hear something like that happening in schools. I was just checking that her sister-in-law's company would not count that as ultraprocessed food. The food that goes in is quite nutritious. Its parts are made fresh and all that.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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On the time, have the witnesses been told how much time would be needed for children to eat their food properly?
Ms Áine Lynch:
That is a really difficult question to answer because some children find eating difficult, particularly younger children who find eating with other children around them very difficult as well. They either get distracted or are very self-conscious. That is on a child-by-child basis but if we could double the time we currently have it, it would be a significant improvement on what we have.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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One of the Deputies mentioned feeding children 15 minutes earlier. Does the lunch break need to be extended? They still want their playtime as well.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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That is probably a big thing we need to research but it is an important one. There might not be as much waste if there was more time to eat.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Yes, if the food was not touching in the little compartments in the container.
Ms Áine Lynch:
We need children's voices more involved in the development of this. When we look at tenders and all of the procurements, we are missing the child's view on what would make a successful hot school lunch for them, whether it comes to time or food being separated so they can pick what they like and not have it smothered in a sauce that will mean they will not eat any of it. We need to really make sure we have children's voices involved in the hot school meals programme.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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As we have mentioned, we have spent so much time on this, which has been fantastic between schools, management bodies, the likes of Barnardos and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and nutritionists. It has been great but we have not had a chance to talk to the food suppliers, who it would be great to hear from as well. I am sure they are running their businesses in the best way they can. It is a brand new programme and they are trying to get as good a quality of food out as they can. For some of the suppliers, I know it might be difficult in that they are delivering food to a school at 7 a.m. and it is not getting eaten until 12 o'clock. I know again because we cook food in our own premises that when we cover food with tin foil or a lid, it can get steamy.
My summary of it is that we have come a long way in six years, with the fact that we are feeding over 500,000 children. I keep using the word "fine-tuning".
We now need to fine-tune it and make it better for the next five years.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I would like to see it. We will have to discuss it with the Chair and Vice Chair.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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This committee has been very open and some of the best feedback the committee has gotten has been from young people, the youth themselves. Next week, a 15-year-old former participant in the young scientist of the year award will come to the committee. When she was 14, she presented a project on hot school meals and serving students. We hope the witnesses will tune in for that next week. The president of the Irish Second-Level Students Union will also be in next week. We are looking at that. We are always looking for people to invite in because it helps to formulate better opinion for the committee. Tune in for that next week. I call Deputy Roche, for four minutes.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Just four.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We might allow a runover because we have bit of time.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The debate we had last week and the conversation we are having today are extremely useful. I am much more informed about what we have, where we need to get to and all of the things that play out in between. There are several moving parts. I think Dr. Allen mentioned it is down to political will. I sense a great political urgency to better it and continue to invest in it further. I do not say that wearing a Government hat or anything like that; I get the sense there is decent urgency around it. From all that we have discussed, local sourcing, producing, preparation and cooking - call it what you like - of the food and local service providers are crucial. When I put my geography hat on, if one prepares food for example in Galway city and you want to get to the furthest end of Connemara, which today does not have a service because the provider pulled out, or east Galway, which I represent, or if the food was produced in Tuam and you wanted to get to the furthest end of the county, how far is reasonable to expect a provider to get to and at the same time have the food warm? There is no question the food will not be the same when it comes out the other end, when it is put onto the plate or the packaging is unwrapped because of the distance and vibrations. If we could combine all of the contributions - they have been many and varied and useful from last week and the witnesses today - we would have the perfect model in there somewhere. I think a witness mentioned earlier having an audit of where we are at, what we are providing and whether we want to continue providing the same thing if it does not meet standards. With all of those things, we will probably end up with a good model. It might not be perfect but I would like all of that to be done to ensure that whatever is dished out to students meets all of the standards, particularly the delicious one. I like that one because I am fond of nice food. I hope the witnesses had something to eat this morning because there is nothing worse than talking about food on an empty stomach. I sincerely thank the witnesses. It been more than helpful and useful to us. It held my attention last week and again this week. We are all passionate about where we want to go to. That is the critical thing for us. Does Mr. Carrigan wish to comment?
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
What the Deputy said last week about management and addressing those issues is the first thing. I can see from management why there would be issues in relation to staff and insurance if they were trying to do it in-house. I can see why they would go to a company to outsource it. They have so much to deal with. Do they really want to deal with trying to figure out food, etc.? It would be useful to address that issue first and perhaps have community bases rather than putting the emphasis on management. As the Deputy and I said, what needs to be at the core is nutritional quality. The scheme is fantastic - I do not disagree with that - but it is about getting to that gold standard. It is about putting nutritional quality and local food at the core; it does not need to come so far.
Ms Áine Lynch:
On the audit piece, in the survey, 49% or nearly half of parents rated the quality of the food and the programme in their school between seven and ten, with ten being the highest. That is significant. We are concentrating on the things people have told us need to improve but we also need to audit what is creating that seven to ten rating. We do not want to throw out things that are working because we just get a general sense that everything is bad. Where it is not working, we can learn from the areas in which it is getting that rating. The audit is essential before we move on to make sure we are clear about where we are.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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The Deputy mentioned north Galway. The councillor in question is Eileen Mannion. She highlighted nine rural schools to me last week. They see the van driving by their doors delivering to other schools but that is because they are small rural schools. The community hub is potentially the only way to resolve that issue. We will take that on board. All of the responses in this committee will feed into the end report. I will also take the opportunity to mention that Senator Nelson Murray is doing a survey at the moment on hot school meals. Political parties do surveys constantly to get information but this has gotten a huge response. I encourage the witnesses to share the link because the more information is fed into that, the more it will help to formulate the decisions we are able to come up with. Mr. Moffatt from Barnardos mentioned a typical Irish family with three kids and the financial impact that school dinners - 15 meals a week - are having on a household like that. Has Barnardos done any research on the actual cost benefit in terms of household savings?
Mr. Stephen Moffatt:
Not specifically. We track certain cohorts of families over time. We have been running a food insecurity survey for the past four or five years to try to track that over time and break it down into different demographics in terms of whether they are more able to afford certain essentials. Unfortunately, we cannot pull out what other factors could be improving or disimproving. I chat to parents about what they are and are not able to do. Parents have told me that they are stretched budget-wise around certain things. The provision of hot school meals to their children allows them not to be as stretched regarding fuel bills, for example. Something that is probably not talked about a huge amount is that parents, by and large, will do everything they possibly can to make sure their children have essentials. This indirectly benefits them because they will go without meals or have rubbish meals. They will try to give their children hot meals in the evening but they might have a sandwich. That does not happen all the time. They will have the same meal three nights in a row so that they can give something different to the children. They tell us the hot school meals programme gives them a bit of leeway.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
That is so true. I saw a comment in a group I moderate for lone parents. Somebody asked when the cost-of-living crisis came in whether anybody had noticed their spending on shopping had really gone up. I was watching the comments and somebody else said their shopping budget had not gone up because they had no room to go up. They said they brought home less food each week. Then, as the discussion started going around, someone said they had toast two nights a week so the kids had something. We are not measuring those benefits, but they are there.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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That was the reason I wanted to emphasise that point. I thought it was well made. We spoke about how to allow time for lunches. Lunches need to be spread out so that different age groups have it at different times.
That will speed up the process and the social engagement as well, so that is something we will raise when we are addressing that. A lot of the witnesses have said home economics should be compulsory and that we should be doing more to educate about food and nutrition. There are so many other aspects. I have spoken about the social benefits. There are some of us here who probably would never have been married if we had not learned to cook in home economics class, so there are other elements. I will happily cook for Dr. Allen and see how it goes. I would love to get the witnesses' feedback on how schools might integrate the nutritional education into the programme delivery. We are always hearing about putting more work on teachers and we do not want to do that. We want this to improve their experience and help them educate the students. The big thing we got from Finland was the trust between teachers and students and how it was a two-way relationship. I am open to the witnesses' thoughts on how that could be done.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
I am a secondary school teacher, not a primary school teacher, but it could link to the SPHE element in the context of well-being, ensuring pupils are getting the nutrition they need every day, etc. As for secondary school, home economics should be compulsory, as the Leas-Chathaoirleach said. It would work really well in terms of the mandatory well-being hours, which I think there are three of per week, though I am not entirely sure off the top of my head. Those hours that are there and which have to be implemented in every school could be used to teach home economics. It does not even have to be home economics as it could be a lesser version specific to nutrition, as the Leas-Chathaoirleach was speaking about.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Would anyone else like to comment?
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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We have all had two rounds of questions. Does anyone have anything else they would like to ask at this stage?
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I think we have exhausted the witnesses. They might be glad of a cup of coffee.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I am about to suggest exhausting them a little more because I would like to give them all a two-minute opportunity if there is something they would like to conclude with. We do not usually have time.
Mr. Stephen Moffatt:
I have one thing that is probably quite important. There are so many benefits that can come off the back of this. What it was originally set up for it is achieving to a certain extent, though the nutrition needs to be improved. As for what additional benefits are wanted now, the Government needs to go back and have a think about it. The Department needs to think about what is achievable and what other things can be done alongside this. We see the benefits of children having food who might not have had it before or where it has taken financial pressure off. We see the additional benefit in that children are having a more positive attitude towards food within some of the families because there was always stress involved. What is the Department's feeling? Here is a programme it has set up, what other benefits can it get in terms of education about food and nutrition and all the other things Dr. Allen was pointing out? Some of that needs to be driven locally within schools but some of it needs to be driven nationally and within the Department to say here is an opportunity and what can it do about all the things that have been brought up today. There needs to be a bit of a drive at the Department level, not just within local schools, if we want to drive up standards and have big outcomes. The societal benefits are massive over time here but we need to monitor what those are, what we are trying to achieve and what outcomes we want to get.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Moffatt. Would anyone else like two minutes to round up? Dr. Allen may go ahead.
Dr. Darina Allen:
This is something that has not been mentioned at all. Food safety is of course of paramount importance but we need to look at the regulations to ensure they are proportionate to the risk involved and that the cost of compliance is not counterproductive to the whole thing. It can be quite an impediment. It is something that needs to be looked at.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Is there anything else? I am allowing the witnesses the two minutes each if they would like to finish up. This is to conclude.
Ms Louise Bayliss:
It is really important we have this discussion. It definitely mitigates child poverty and some of the things we are experiencing. However, we have to point out we have research we produce every year in the Vincentian Partnership that states what it takes for a family in a household to maintain themselves with the minimum essential standard of living. The social protection rates do not match that. We cannot separate food poverty from general poverty. Food poverty exists because of general poverty. We need to make sure the Department of Social Protection rates match what is needed to maintain a family. That is essential. I have to reiterate we are talking about a wealthy country, yet we got 112,000 requests for assistance with food alone last year. For food, which is the most basic need, we got 112,000. Last year we also had over four months where over 10,000 people a month called to us for food. We need to look at the free school meals being an essential plaster, but we need to fix the structural issues that are causing that poverty.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Has Ms Bayliss noticed any decline in those requests during the lifetime of the school meals programme?
Ms Louise Bayliss:
It is unfortunate that we have not, and I put that down to it coinciding with the cost-of-living crisis. The programme was introduced first, then there were the lockdowns due to Covid so there was not the full roll out initially. When it came back in we would possibly have seen that decline, but then the cost-of-living crisis hit so the families who would have been most at risk were again most at risk. That said, when we had the introduction of free school books our August and September calls and requests for assistance to do with school dropped. That was really strong evidence that initiatives like that work and people are only coming to us when they need that help. There was a significant drop when free school books were introduced.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Has Ms Bayliss noticed the same with the school uniforms and shoes?
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Perfect. Would anyone else like a two-minute slot to conclude?
Ms Áine Lynch:
I might not use the whole two minutes but I would like some of it, please.
On the issue of post-primary, somebody asked at one point when we should do that. We should do it yesterday. We can talk about a phased basis but the urgency of having hot school meals in post-primary schools is huge so that really needs to be prioritised. A child does not leave primary school one day and go to a post-primary school and have their needs change. In fact they do, but we know they increase, so that is really important. The other part, which Mr. Moffatt talked about a little bit, is we need to look at what hot school meals link in with. There are two key issues. One I have mentioned before is the obesity strategy. Off the top of my head, Ireland is one of the worst countries in Europe for childhood obesity so we when we are doing State provision of food we need to make sure that is a core part of it. The other element it really needs to link with is the attendance strategy in schools. We all know attendance has dropped in schools, especially post Covid, and it is not coming back as quickly as we want it to. It has been slightly touched on today that attendance can mean that children stay in school after the school meal but we need to try to link those things intentionally better.
Dr. Naomi Feely:
The hot school meals scheme is a really good example of how the Government can invest over successive budgetary cycles to tackle the issue of child poverty. We would like to see this approach mirrored in other Departments. We see it in early years as well. We have had a sustained increase in investment in early childhood education and care and we think that is really positive. Of course we need to look at what the quality level is. We have heard a lot of anecdotal evidence and research but as Ms Lynch was saying, it is really critical we have a comprehensive view of what is happening in schools. There is brilliant work being done by the interdepartmental group. That is a way of looking at it from a nutritional perspective and in terms of looking at what the value for money is as well.
I am really struck by some of the comments by Dr. Allen on the examples of really good practice happening in rural areas maybe moreso than urban ones, but there is scope to look at how we pilot and scale up those really excellent examples. That may be another way forward when it comes to recommendations for the next budget. We could look at the examples of good practice that are happening across the country and whether the Government could provide funding for those. That ticks off another critical policy objective for the Government related to climate action and climate breakdown.
The thing children and young people tell us most is they want more green areas in which to play, to participate in after-school activities, etc., but they are also really concerned about climate breakdown. It impacts their well-being and mental health. This is a way to achieve multiple policy objectives, relating, as Ms Lynch was saying, to obesity as well. Looking creatively at that and possibly looking to pilot innovative solutions at community level would be good steps forward.
Mr. Denis Carrigan:
I reiterate that nutrition and quality, locally sourced food should be at the core of this scheme. It is a great scheme but it could reach that gold standard. There are two questions I would like members to think about. Is it necessary for food to travel vast distances to schools? Is it necessary to have ultra-processed meals served to students, comparable to airline food? There is a great alternative: community schemes, as Ms Allen wonderfully outlined, with locally sourced produce and meals served on plates. There is the potential to educate young people about nutrition sustainability through home economics at secondary school, potentially using well-being hours, and at primary school through the SPHE curriculum. As I said earlier, age-appropriate portions need to be looked at. It is not good enough that a junior infant is served the same portion as a sixth class student.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Quite a bit of food for thought there.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Plenty of food for thought, Deputy. Thank you very much. We have been very good on time. On behalf of the committee, I thank our witnesses for sharing their insights, knowledge and expertise with us. It has been a very beneficial and productive meeting.