Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 28 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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Apologies have been received from Deputy Dempsey and Senator Joe Conway.
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 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: Dr. Maria O'Sullivan, associate professor in human nutrition, clinical medicine, Trinity College Dublin; Mr. Conor McCarthy, principal, Tallaght Community National School; Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne, principal, St. Mary's National School, Limerick city; and Ms Áine O'Leary, student, St. Mary's Secondary School, Macroom, County Cork. The Irish Second-Level Students' Union was invited to attend but it had to decline because of upcoming mock examinations.
I will call on our witnesses to make their opening statements in the following order: Dr. O'Sullivan, Mr. McCarthy, Mr. O'Byrne and Áine. They will each have five minutes. The opening statements will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Each member will have a six-minutes slot today to ask questions from the witnesses and to respond. The six minutes will include the witnesses' responses. When I let the witnesses have their five minutes, if they hear me tapping on the glass it means their time is up, but their opening statements, which have been submitted already, will be available on the website.
I call Dr. O'Sullivan.
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to contribute to the discussion today. My statement will focus mostly on the public health nutrition side and educational aspects.
Worldwide, over 460 million children participate in government-led school meals programmes, which impact nutrition, education and heath inequalities, and yet today, in Ireland, one in five children remains living with food poverty.
I suppose the question is: what impact do these programmes have on nutrition? Current evidence shows that school meals programmes are associated, for example, with lower intakes of sugar, sugar-sweetened beverages and saturated fat, and correspondingly, higher levels of fruit and vegetable intake among 12-to-18-year-olds; and similarly, the consumption of ultra-processed foods is reduced, particularly at the lunchtime meal, driven largely by increases in healthier options and reductions in snacks and sugar drinks. Essentially, school meals are associated with a better diet quality or healthy diet, and may support a healthy body weight.
Greater benefits are shown for participants living with socioeconomic disadvantage. However, suboptimal or low dietary intakes are often considered hidden risks and they are not confined to specific groups. The universality of the scheme is a key strength, although you need high meal uptakes to ensure equitable outcomes for all.
Beyond nutrition, food is more than fuel. Sharing mealtimes and conversation is all part of our social fabric, and builds social connections and connectedness.
On the implications, there is consistent evidence to show that school meals programmes have a positive impact on the nutritional intake of children and young adults, with potential to shape lifelong dietary habits. It is investing for now and for the future. In return, these healthier dietary patterns may reduce chronic conditions in adulthood. Moreover, these programmes are also associated with specific key educational benefits such as supporting attendance, educational attainment and social interactions.
For the programme in Ireland, the goal is to ensure that children are offered a healthy nutritious balanced meal guided by the Nutritional Standards for Hot School Meals. For example, there are certain requirements. They must include fruit and vegetables daily. They must limit intakes of sugar, salt and fat, and processed foods. It should be considered the healthier option.
However, there are logistical challenges to successful implementation, particularly around flexibility, access to kitchens, dining spaces, food waste, packaging, and even food presentation and how it is presented, and in terms of sustainability for the future.
Looking beyond the infrastructure and the challenges and into the future, linking programmes with learning initiatives has been key to some programmes' success. These school meals provide opportunities to embed practical learning activities around healthy diets, food, sustainability and climate. Students can be involved in their design. Indeed, there have been some lovely examples of student involvement. There should be partnerships with local communities, enterprise groups and local colleges and universities to deliver programmes on nutrition and food and for other activities. More broadly, the meal programmes are of interest with regard to public health because they reach children right across Ireland, that is to say, they reach children at a population level, potentially over many years of their education. They are therefore a potential window into the impact on this group's food habits right across Ireland. The programme also offers immense opportunities to understand the lived experience of the students and their attitudes to food, nutrition and beyond, which will be really interesting.
Notwithstanding the real challenges in terms of implementation, the evidence suggests the school meal programmes demonstrate a positive impact on the nutritional intake of children and young people and have the potential to shape lifelong dietary habits. They are investment in the now and in the future. Importantly, these programmes support specific aspects of school attendance, learning, educational attainment and social interactions.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
I have read the reports of the previous committee meetings on the hot school meals programme with interest. I support many of the statements made by representatives of the education and charity sectors about the overall positive impact the programme has had and about areas for further development and expansion.
The hot school meals programme is feeding hungry children from families where there is food poverty, for one reason or another. My school in Jobstown, Tallaght, and schools like mine that may soon be classified as DEIS plus in west Tallaght, Killinarden, Ballymun and Darndale welcome children to school every day who have not had breakfast and who may not have had a decent dinner the day before. The programme is guaranteeing them the option of a decent meal every day. The hot meals programme has to be seen as a positive step forward. Food poverty exists in Ireland and it is often hidden. It exists in DEIS schools and in non-DEIS schools.
Our school started the hot meals programme in the first year we were eligible, five years ago. In the first week, a little girl in senior infants turned to her teacher and said “What are them green things?” “They’re peas”, the teacher replied. “I like them; they’re kind of sweet”, she concluded. A child who is hungry is less likely to attend school, will have less energy for play and will find it harder to learn. The hot meals programme is an example of good policy and helps to prevent children from going hungry.
Perfect is the enemy of good. I have often been critical of the State for lack of action, risk aversion and over-reliance on working groups, which slows decision making down. The introduction and expansion of the hot meals programme must be celebrated and credit must be given to those involved. I absolutely believe that there are areas of the programme where development needs to take place. Many of those areas have already been highlighted by others who have come in front of this committee. The procurement and application process can be further simplified. The patron of my school, Tallaght Community National School, is Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ETB, which gave our school excellent support with these processes. However, there is a fundamental mistake in relation to how EU procurement law is applied to schools. In an era when the EU is seeking to become less bureaucratic and more efficient, it would be wise to stop asking individual schools to do the same kind of time-consuming procurement we demand from big organisations like the HSE.
Additional funding should be given to schools for the cost of electricity, cleaning, waste and pest control. At the moment, medium-sized and large schools can rely on the hot meals providers to employ someone to prepare and serve the food but there may come a time in the future when those providers decide that their margins do not allow for this any more. The hot school meals programme should provide additional funding directly to schools to guarantee a human being in the school and that this service does not disappear. No additional funding is provided to schools to cover electricity or cleaning costs. I would find it extremely hard to quantify for the committee what the additional hidden monetary cost of the hot meals programme has been for my school because I am constantly trying to figure out whether our school electricity, heating, water, printing, waste, cleaning and alarm maintenance costs are in line for a school of our size. There is no baseline comparator.
During one of the committee's meetings before Christmas, which was on school funding, an exchange took place between Deputy Darren O’Rourke and Ms Cliodhna O’Neill. Ms O’Neill made the claim that the Department has aggregated data on running costs from every school in Ireland and said the Department believes the current level of capitation funding is sufficient. I would love to see that data. If it exists, schools should be given a baseline figure as to what it takes to run a 100-, 300- or 500-pupil school. The reality is that the hot school meals programme has probably increased the cost of running a school. Schools should have been given additional funding when it was introduced.
School cooking and dining facilities should also be improved so that children are not required to eat at their desks and so that food can be cooked on site or as locally as possible. Media coverage over the past 18 months regarding food quality and nutritional standards has led to welcome changes in menus. This improved nutritional quality of meals is good. This progress should continue.
The hot school meals programme must be recognised as a success. Additional funding is required to ensure its continued success and it should be expanded to include DEIS post-primary schools to ensure continuity for children when they leave primary school. My takeaway is simple: the hot school meals programme is feeding hungry children.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
I sincerely thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today about the hot school meals programme and what it has meant for St. Mary’s National School and our wider school community. I was appointed principal of St. Mary's National School in December 2021. We are based on King’s Island in Limerick city. According to the HP deprivation index 2022, we serve the most marginalised community in the country. However, this does not define us. We are a proud, diverse, multicultural and inclusive national school that has seen rapid growth in the last four years. Our student population has increased by a staggering 80% in four years and we continue to embrace our strong belief that education equals opportunity.
St. Mary’s National School has been part of the hot school meals programme since 2021. Prior to that, the school was part of the free school meals cold food scheme. While that scheme provided essential support, the introduction of hot meals marked a transformative shift for the children attending our school. When St. Mary’s first joined the programme, children were offered five menu options per day. Today, that has expanded significantly to 13 options daily, with 26 options available across the week. This variety has been crucial. It respects children’s preferences, cultural backgrounds, dietary needs and, importantly, dignity. Children feel they have choice and not charity. Flexibility has also improved greatly. Initially, parents needed to give a full week’s notice to amend a child’s menu. That is no longer realistic in busy family lives. We can be thankful that this has changed and amendments can now be made with 48 hours’ notice, which has been a very welcome development for parents, school staff and children alike.
The quality of the food has been very good. Meals are delivered in fully compostable containers, aligning with our environmental responsibilities. The supplier provides clear guidance on the 14 legally recognised allergens, operates in a 100% nut-free facility - that is a really important point for me personally as I have an infant son who has recently been diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy - and caters for vegetarian, vegan and halal diets. Inclusion is clearly at the heart of this service. Menus are designed to be accessible even for the most hesitant or fussy eaters and the service's in-house dietitian, alongside two CORU-registered dietitians, offers individualised support to parents of children with more complex dietary needs. This level of professionalism matters enormously in a primary school setting like ours.
The school has developed an excellent working relationship with the supplier. The supplier actively seeks feedback, communicates regularly and is visible and, more importantly, responsive. That partnership approach has made implementation far smoother and more effective. For context, the cost to the school is €3.20 per meal, which represents strong value when measured against the nutritional, educational and well-being benefits. Like all schools, St. Mary’s does experience some food wastage. In my professional judgment, this is less about food quality and more about children’s developing palates. I would estimate wastage at approximately 15% per day. We work closely with parents to address this and only a very small number of children bring their own lunches. Our supplier provides us with compost bins to dispose of waste in an environmentally friendly manner.
I will briefly share a personal perspective. My own son attends a school that uses the exact same provider. He is in junior infants and has had a very positive experience, eating his full lunch five days a week. He even enjoys using the user-friendly app to choose and change meals weekly. At times, this is a nightly nightmare. That consistency between professional and personal experience reinforces my strong confidence in the programme.
However, it would be remiss of me not to highlight a hugely negative aspect, namely, the dreaded procurement process. The workload, pressure and administrative burden placed on schools have been excessive and, frankly, unfair. Schools should not be expected to navigate complex procurement systems independently. All vendors should be pre-approved by the Department of social inclusion and far greater practical support must be provided to school leaders and administrators to negate this burden.
I want to address the critical issue of food provision during school holidays. Food poverty is becoming increasingly visible. Some children in our school may receive up to 15 meals per week during term time. In St Mary's we provide a universal breakfast club, snacks at small break, a hot meal at big break and dinner for some of our tailored and extended after-school programmes. Unfortunately, when schools close, that safety net disappears. This is a gap that must be urgently addressed at a national level. I strongly welcomed the Department of social inclusion's decision last summer to extend the provision to summer camps.
In conclusion, the hot school meals programme has been overwhelmingly positive for children's health, well-being, concentration and a clear sense of belonging. With continued investment, better administrative support and year-round thinking, it has the potential to be one of the most impactful educational interventions of our time.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you very much, Mr. O'Byrne. Our final speaker will be Áine. We are very keen to hear about your research into this.
Ms Áine O'Leary:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and the members of the committee for inviting me to speak on the topic of the hot school meals programme. I am a third year student from St Mary's Secondary School, Macroom, County Cork. In 2024 I conducted a research project examining the recent roll-out of the hot school meals programme in Ireland. The hot school meals programme, also known as the free lunch scheme, was first introduced in 2019 as a pilot scheme to just over 30 schools. The scheme has grown rapidly, with over 2,850 primary schools currently availing of the scheme in early 2026. The scheme is operated and funded by the Department of Social Protection. By providing students with a hot meal every day, the programme aims to improve students' school attendance, school performance and behaviour, enabling students to reach their full potential, both academically and socially.
When starting this research project I hypothesised that while principals, teachers and parents viewed the scheme as a positive addition to primary schools, there would inevitably be improvements suggested in certain areas, including the nutritional value of the meals, portion sizes and the quantity of leftovers and waste generated as a result of the scheme. Additionally, I believe that the three groups identified may have been concerned that students' initial excitement over having the new lunches would fade, resulting in more leftovers being generated. As part of my research, I carried out four separate surveys to target four different groups of people who engaged with the scheme daily. The first two surveys were designed for principals and teaching staff. These surveys focused on issues being discussed in the media at the time, including waste and the nutritional content of the food. It also sought to find out if principals and teachers believed the scheme should be implemented across all primary schools. The third survey was distributed to parents whose child or children were attending primary school. This survey aimed to assess whether parents felt the scheme was beneficial to their children and to get their opinions on certain aspects of the scheme. The final questionnaire was distributed to a selection of primary school children, from third to sixth class. I surveyed students from an urban and a rural school, each of which had recently rolled out the hot school meals programme. This survey was used to find out if children were enjoying the lunches provided and whether they would rather have a packed lunch from home over a lunch provided by the school.
Having conducted my research, clear trends emerged among all four groups surveyed. Among the 155 parents who responded to the survey, 22.5% thought that the lunches did not meet good nutritional standards. Despite their children getting a hot school meal, just over 85% still gave their children additional snacks going to school. Almost half of the parents said that their child usually had leftovers, with most of them being brought home. Some 82.6% of the parents thought it was a good idea to roll out the free lunch scheme to all primary schools in Ireland. Teachers and principals stated that their students bring the leftovers from their lunches home, and just under 65% of teachers and principals thought that the school meals provided to pupils delivered value for money. Many of the principals surveyed said that they have a large amount of paperwork to fill out to implement the scheme in their school. Primary school students gave the meals an average rating of 3.28 out of 5 stars, but all ratings were extremely varied. In addition, 72% of students stated that they have tried new foods because of the free lunch scheme. The majority of the students binned their food waste at home and, of the students, 36.3% said that they would prefer a lunch from home rather than a lunch from school.
From all the results received across all four surveys I would make the following recommendations. The nutritional standards of the school lunches should be regularly reviewed by nutritionists to ensure that the meals are both healthy and appealing to students. The scheme should include the option of choosing between a hot meal or a cold lunch, especially during the summer months. The company providing the meals should be regularly inspected to ensure the quality of the food stays consistent. The current packaging of most of the meals cannot be recycled. As it is made of cardboard, it absorbs the grease from the lunches. A reusable lunchbox or more sustainable packaging could combat this issue. Food waste and leftovers were huge issues across all groups. To address this, portion sizes should be adjusted according to age and schools should have greater flexibility to cancel a hot meal to prevent an extra lunch being sent to the school.
In conclusion, while the hot school meals programme has greatly benefited Irish primary school pupils, there are some ways in which the scheme could be improved. By addressing certain aspects of the scheme, the meals could further support students' academic and social development. The scheme has the makings of a very worthwhile initiative.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Áine, that is fantastic. We are the education and youth committee and we always emphasise that it is great to have young voices. You are all very welcome but we particularly welcome Áine here today because students are central. We talk about school meals. The teachers and principals might carry them around corridors but it is the students who are eating them, so that perspective is important. It is not just anecdotal because you have all your statistics there and it is very impressive, so well done. We will now go to questions, so I will explain how the next part works. We have TDs and Senators from all parties and none, Government and Opposition. They will all have around six and a half minutes speaking time. You might hear the glass tapping. That signals to whoever is speaking at the time to wrap it up. If time allows, we might get a second round of questions in. First up is Senator Shane Curley.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for the presentations. The first question is more for Mr. McCarthy and Mr. O'Byrne as school leaders. I want to acknowledge the procurement demands. I am hearing that anecdotally at home, in the committee here and across the board. I think there is universal acceptance at this point that the amount of procurement involved is too cumbersome. What alternative would work? What simplified version would work in a transparent way to allow school leaders procure school lunches for schools?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
One of the things I spoke about was the fact that Tallaght CNS is an ETB school. Our procurement is done centrally by Dublin-Dún Laoghaire ETB, which my school is part of. It has 12 community national schools and the community colleges. The ETB does the procurement process on our school's behalf, which is excellent for me. It means I do not experience the same burden of paperwork that school principals in non-ETB schools have to go through themselves. The ETB procurement process is not perfect, and I can come back to the Senator with lots of suggestions on how to improve that, but certainly centrally procuring them either through clusters or the Department of education, like Mr. O'Byrne suggested, or the local ETB, takes the burden off principals.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
We are supposed to be a Jack of all trades and a master of none. I do not know if the Senator is fully aware of the requirements for the procurement process. We are expected to look at food safety management, HACCP, the financial ability of the companies, environmental considerations and nutritional quality. As educators, we do not have the necessary expertise and I will say that openly. Our expertise is in the education field and special needs and that kind of stuff. The process is totally bureaucratic and full of red tape. Ours is a medium-sized school, the same as Mr. McCarthy's. We are expected to look at three different procurement tenders. We have to give feedback to all the three and the two unsuccessful ones are entitled to come back at us to review their scoring system. My suggestion would be that all vendors should be pre-approved by the Department of social inclusion. At the moment, anyone can come in off the side of the street and look for the business as long as they fit all the requirements. They should be pre-approved and that will increase the nutritional value and the quality, but that onus and burden should be taken off schools.
Having an educational background himself, the Cathaoirleach knows well the huge onus on primary school principals. We can see a dramatic number of principals resigning their posts and going back into teaching. Principals are expected to be a HR manager and a maintenance manager and this is just another task that we are asked to do as well.
Pre-approval by the Department of Social Protection would help, as would taking the procurement process away from school management.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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I have seen that happening locally. Even before the school meals programme was rolled out nationally at primary level, there were principals going back into mainstream roles. It is a nightmare.
The witnesses said the level of food waste is approximately 15%. Is there any link in their schools between that level of waste and portion sizes potentially being universal from junior infants up to sixth class, or have the meals been tailored to the age-specific class groups? How does that work?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
There potentially is a link. Certainly, the portion size is not tailored, being the same for a junior infant as for a child in sixth class. This is something that could be improved upon or developed. Cooking the food on site helps. I am aware of a couple of primary schools in Dublin that have canteens as a result of local fundraising or agreements with other organisations on their school site. When children are given the option of a food tray, a plate and picking the items they want, they know how much they need.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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We have seen evidence of that in Finland.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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We are in the very infant stages of this, with very few schools having that facility. It is something I agree should be rolled out. Does Mr. O'Byrne wish to comment?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
We definitely need to look at portion sizes. For a junior infant child who is four or five years of age, the portion size is the same as for a child in sixth class who is aged 12 or 13. Again, I am looking at this from a personal perspective. My child is in junior infants and on the vast majority of days, the lunchbox comes home empty.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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Mr. McCarthy mentioned that his school uses compostable packaging, which means there is no long-term waste. Will Áine comment on whether it might be helpful to set up some sort of forum in a national capacity whereby feedback could be sought from all the different school leaders, including on any good practice they may have? We are finding the feedback is very varied depending on the area and the type of supplier. Some suppliers are doing some really good stuff, while others are bringing in non-recyclable and non-compostable packaging, as Áine has found. Does she think such a forum could be helpful?
Ms Áine O'Leary:
In my sister's school, if there is leftover food, students can take it home in a reusable lunchbox. However, the packaging, which I have seen, is cardboard and not very robust. More reusable containers to bring food home in would be helpful, as would trays to allow students to serve themselves. If that were brought in instead of individual lunches, with students serving themselves, it might reduce food waste and would also solve the portion size problem across all the different age groups.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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It has been suggested that in all future planning of new schools, there would be a criterion that there be a dining area where that type of buffet-style option could be provided, whereby children would have a tray, a plate and the ability to choose the amount they need to eat. There could be four children in the same class varying in size from 3 ft to 5 ft, each of whom will need a totally different portion size, never mind the variation from junior infants up to sixth class. I hear what Áine is saying.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
With all due respect to the Senator's comment, the school meals programme is in its infancy. We have not yet mastered the roll-out of special classes across the country over the past ten to 15 years. We are still putting children with special needs into Portakabins without the proper facilities a special needs unit deserves.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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I hear what Mr. O'Byrne is saying and it is fair enough. That is a higher priority.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Next up is Deputy Ní Raghallaigh. She has agreed, to which I consent, to swap with Deputy Roche. He has six minutes.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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All the witnesses are most welcome. I say that especially to Áine, who is a great ambassador for St. Mary's Secondary School, Macroom.
One of the things we were seeking from this meeting is exactly what the witnesses have provided. The hot school meals programme has been in place since 2019 and we have come quite a distance in many respects, from having nothing to where we are at. Now we are trying to critique it. The scheme was born out of the fact children were attending school hungry. What we have now is progress. However, I am sure the schools that do not have a hot school meals service are really aggravated that we are here trying to perfect something other schools have while they are waiting for the programme to roll out to their schools.
Last week and the week before, we had witnesses in representing all the stakeholders. It was compelling that the messaging was almost identical in terms of issues regarding food quality and nutritional value and facilities within schools to deliver the service, some of them adequate, more not adequate and others pleading for a facility wherein they would eventually be able to prepare their own food. Other matters raised were how cumbersome the procurement process is, lack of staffing and the whole issue of break duration in terms of how long students have to get and eat their food and how much time teachers have to serve students and eat their own lunch. The conversation last week was interesting because there was a general consensus that it would be lovely to get to a situation of serving locally produced and locally prepared food that has the required nutritional value. Ms Darina Allen, in her contribution, spoke about delicious food. Having all that in place would be a lovely place to be.
I am all the better and wiser for all the contributions during our three meetings on this issue. We have a good grasp of where we are at but, of course, we have a distance to go. My question to the witnesses today is what their one single ask of the Department would be in terms of managing the programme. Would it be for funding for additional staffing, for example, or for facilities? That is what I am trying to ascertain.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
From a personal perspective, I would ask for that process of pre-approval of vendors and taking the procurement process away from schools. That would relieve an awful lot of the administrative burden currently on principals and school management. That, to me, is critical as we move forward. There are a lot of tweaks that could be made to the programme. It certainly is not perfect. There is no doubt about that but it definitely is meeting a purpose. The overall general consensus from principals across the country is that it is a very positive programme but it is overburdening administrative staff in schools. No vendor should be entitled to approach or go into a school without pre-approval from the Department of Social Protection and maybe a licence agreement in place. That would reduce the administrative burden on school administration.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
My ask would be what I spoke about in terms of the funding of the human being preparing and serving the meals. As I said, that is being done at the moment insofar as the hot meal suppliers are trying to get our businesses. They will come to school management and say: "If you choose us, we will pay for someone to be on your school site for two hours of the day to put the meals on, wait until they are cooked and then hand them out." However, if there comes a time in future when hot meal providers do not think it necessary to throw in that sweetener for schools, it will be impossible to run the service because teachers and SNAs are busy enough. We cannot be cooking meals as well. Funding schools directly to employ someone from the locality to be the food preparer and server is dealing with that problem before it might arise.
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
Obviously, infrastructure and finance are key, but also important is having some degree of flexibility in order that there can be some alternatives from time to time and students can engage a bit more with the food, be a part of the process and even self-serve. We often talk about plates and how they are often the way to educate people about diet and nutrition. These are some basic things we could improve. Obviously, the infrastructure that will develop over time is critical. If we are to follow international models, it is notable that they have much better infrastructure but they also have an aspect of involvement in and enjoyment of food and the ability for students to engage a little bit by choosing for and serving themselves. Long term, that seems to be one of the sustainable points in the international programmes.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Áine has 25 seconds if she wants to comment.
Ms Áine O'Leary:
As a secondary school student whose school has a canteen, I would say it would be great if all new builds had some form of facility where students could sit together. In addition, as a home economics student, it would be great if all students could have some idea of food nutrition, even if it is just covered in a small aspect of a class or by way of a four-week course.
It would be great so they know what foods are considered nutritious and which are not. Maybe they can make choices from those lessons in the future.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe ar fad as ucht a bheith anseo inniu. Before I start, procurement was in my notes. One of the things I wanted to bring up was if a pre-approved supplier list from the Department might reduce the administrative burden. I was delighted with my question, and they have just been speaking about it. Would there be a need for a forum for principals to share these experiences and raise concerns that were emphasised? Does that exist already or has there been talk about that within the principal forums?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
Geographically, a lot of networks would have their own principal forums and networks. In Limerick, we are fortunate that we have the OSCAILT network in conjunction with Mary Immaculate College. We have all the DEIS primary school principals there along with two DEIS post-primary principals. That works as an excellent support network. I am feeding back information today on their behalf. The general consensus is that the procurement process is a huge issue, but in general it is a positive programme inside schools. Being a school principal is an isolated position at times. However, building your network around you is important. Something I would also allude to is that there is no supervision in the education sector, whether for principals or more importantly, for my former role as home school community liaison teacher. That also needs to be looked at. It is definitely something we lack, and you end up building your own support network around you. Fortunately, in Limerick we have a good support network of principals who are supportive and with whom we work collaboratively on numerous projects.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Dr. O'Sullivan spoke about the potential for the scheme to go beyond food as fuel, and to recognise food as part of our social fabric. What specific measures or supports could strengthen the social education potential of the scheme? How might these be realistically implemented in our schools?
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
At basic level I was alluding to the fundamental aspect of students eating together in dining areas rather than at their desks. Beyond that there is a huge role for students to be involved in research projects to own it and be more involved in it. That is where you are able to get the information of how to roll it out in the future to people who are at the receiving end of it. There is a lot of information about linking with local enterprises, doing projects outside, being involved with food, growing it and so on. There is also the educational component. The success of international programmes certainly seems to rely on having even a short educational programme, so the whole school learns a bit more about food and is involved in designing that themselves. That has been identified as a missed opportunity in some programmes that are rolled out without embedding it into something in the curriculum or making it more structured along those lines.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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We discussed something similar last week. I was a primary school teacher for almost 20 years. Again, it is about time and our timetables, and how we fit it all in. Do we extend the school day? We can maybe take it to Croke Park, I do not know. I turn to Mr. McCarthy. I went to school in Tallaght, so it is good to see him here from a Tallaght school.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Food poverty is often hidden. I was hoping he could speak to how this manifests in his school community. This is also for anyone who wants to jump in.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
It manifests itself in hungry children in the schools. You do not realise until you start asking questions who has and has not had a breakfast coming in. Lots of teachers in our school and similar schools have such good relationships with the children that they know by the look on someone's face in the morning, by the colour of their skin, or how rested they look whether they had a slice of toast or a bowl of cereal. It is hidden because for the children it is not something they might see as out of the norm. That is the life they are living. Sometimes there is food in the house and sometimes there is not. At primary school that is not something they might say out loud unless they are asked about it. Having the free school lunches and the hot meals specifically, if there is no time for teachers and SNAs to ask those questions, guarantees them the hot meal every single day. Like Mr. Byrne, we have some children who would eat half or three quarters of their lunch and some children who will eat three lunches. There is not a massive amount of wastage in our school.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I am learning a lot more about holiday hunger. In all of my years I had no hands-on experience of holiday hunger. If anybody wants to speak to that, it would be welcome.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Does that come from the school lunch programmes?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
Some of the parents in our schools are dependent on the school meals process. For example, we might have four or five kids from the one family in our school so that could be up to 15 meals per week per child. If you multiply that by four you are talking about 60 meals. Even if your meals are only costing you €2 that is possibly €120 per week. It is not that they are saving it. They do not have it. I welcome that the Department of Social Protection last year extended summer provision. We were able to give two weeks of summer camps, which were universally operated in the school. We had 100 kids in attendance. We had inclusion camps as well. For the following two or three weeks a lot of our kids went on and worked with Barnardos and Limerick Youth Service. What they then had was a progression to maybe five weeks where they were getting fed. We have been fortunate for the past three or four years at Christmas time. I know Dr. Naomi Feely was here last week for the Children’s Rights Alliance. We were able to provide every family with a voucher for their local butcher and a voucher for their local supermarket, which is positive. There is also Easter, and the mid-term breaks as well, so that whole-year model needs to be incorporated into the funding mechanism. It is really important. I would not say they are depending on it, but school meals have a huge part to play in the economic value at home as well. They must struggle. I have no doubt about it.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I agree that it should be included.
Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here and for their presentations in advance of today's meeting. I start with Dr. O'Sullivan with regard to the points in her opening statement that the hot school meals programme is allowing for higher intakes of fruit and vegetables, lower intakes of ultra-processed foods and better-quality diets as a result. In relation to overall nutritional value and what people are generally eating in this country, is she seeing lower quality meals, more processed foods and less nutritionally dense foods being consumed across the board, excluding the hot school meals programme? Is it a concern generally for our children's nutrition?
Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
There are certainly higher rates of obesity, diabetes and chronic conditions. It is well established within Ireland, Europe and internationally that there are poorer quality diets within the general population and among children. Any efforts that can be made to address that are welcome, particularly for the children and young people themselves. There are also potential benefits if you develop dietary patterns that are more healthy that you may sustain those into adulthood. I do a lot of work on chronic conditions in older people at population level. You can prevent something later. It is not just about intervening now; there are also potential benefits into the future. That is well documented. A lot of the time you should maybe stay away from the weight perspective. It is about developing a pattern of healthy eating. If your school meal is healthy and balanced, that is sufficient. It is probably all of the other things people consume. There was also a concern that adding an additional hot meal might not have benefit as it concerns weight or additional calorie intake. It is actually shown to be the opposite. Because the food is prepared and is a healthy meal low in processing, salt, sugar and fat, it does not contribute. It either supports or maintains weight or has no impact on weight. That is important, because it comes up about an extra meal for some people who do not need it. The universality of the scheme is important. You do not just see hunger in smaller rural areas or other places. It can be anywhere. Universality means you have potential universal outcomes if all receive it.
Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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That is an important point. Dr. O'Sullivan answered the initial question I asked in some detail. There is a lot of discussion about this programme. The universal aspect, which I asked about last week, is important. However, the point Dr. O'Sullivan made about building better food habits for children from a young age has not been discussed enough publicly in the context of this scheme. It is another benefit we will potentially see from it, and it is welcome. As a result, it is probably important for us to note it in any report of the committee in order that the positive side is not forgotten in all this.
One issue that is often brought to my attention regarding the hot school meals programme is the waste involved and where it is disposed of. Across the board to the witnesses, if the food is not eaten, should it be brought home by children in order that schools are not taking on the additional financial burden of disposing of waste? We also hear about rodent issues in some schools because so much food is being dumped. Should parents who are not sending lunch in with their children know what they eat during the day? What do the witnesses think?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
Yes, that is the better option. I think parents would like to know what their children are eating every day. It would give them a better idea about whether to change the child's choice from the menu, depending on whether the child is eating the food. Many parents frequently say to me that when they ask their children how they got in school, they will say it was fine and that nothing happened. Children do not feed information back easily, so it would be a better system.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
I am speaking from two different perspectives. My son's school sends home the lunchboxes, so no waste is left in the school and I get the opportunity to look at what was and was not eaten. That is positive. From our perspective as a school, anything we do not use we try to offload to some of the local charities, which is another positive aspect. We look at some of the homeless shelters, and homeless people get fed as well. If not, it goes into compost bags and bins and is sent out. That is fully funded by the service provider, so there is no additional cost to the school. We try to minimise waste as much as possible. Even at home time or when children are going home from the after-school club, the lunches are always laid out and the children can take them if they want. There are more options for them to take if they want. That is not a problem.
Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I am going to change topic with my final question, which is for Áine. I thank her for her opening statement and for the work she did. It is incredibly impressive. One point she made is that the scheme should include an option to choose between hot school meals and cold lunches. From her perspective, as a young person and student at school, and that of her peers, is that needed and wanted?
Ms Áine O'Leary:
When I was in primary school, there was no hot school meals programme. It was just starting to be rolled out as I was leaving, but there were cold lunches students had to pay for. If their parents were paying for it, the children were more likely to eat it. Even in the school canteen, a hot school meal seems to be wanted more in winter. For example, soup is offered more often in winter, as are cups of tea. They are not offered in the summer because very few people want them. Therefore, if the lunches were slightly adjusted to the seasons, students might be happier with the options.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the witnesses. I will start with a question for Mr. O'Byrne about the whole-year model. In practical terms, are there examples of it in Ireland or elsewhere? How does it work? Do all the children go to school every day? What are the practicalities of that?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
The way we run it is that we have a privately funded position called an extended learning opportunities co-ordinator. We collaborate with Corpus Christi Primary School in Limerick. We run extended provision until 5 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The children attend it and get an additional hot meal per day. It runs during summer holidays as well. During summer holidays, thanks to the Department of Education and an increase in support for that, we were able to offer summer camps to all our pupils as well as inclusion camps for our children with autism. That gave us an extra two-week burden, which was fully staffed by our staff in the school with a few additional SNAs from outside, but it needs a wraparound support model.
We need to think about our schools and, especially in areas like St. Mary's Park, which is the most disadvantaged area in country, we need to provide a wraparound support model. For example, some of our children come in at 8.15 a.m. They can have their breakfast. They will have a free snack at small break at 11 a.m. They will have a free hot meal at 12.30 p.m. They might have a free dinner at around 4 p.m., and the extended provision goes on until 5 p.m. The wraparound support model then extends to the youth service. Some of our children go directly from extended provision at 5 p.m. to the youth service until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and might not get home until 8.15 p.m. or 8.20 p.m. If we want to be inclusive in society and start to address educational disadvantage and inequalities, we need to go beyond the 3.15 p.m. deadline in schools.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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That point has been well made - the holiday hunger, as it is called. On the running of the scheme and the non-food costs, we heard from witnesses previously who talked about procurement, administration and the number of hours every week spent on it by principals and other staff. They pointed to recommendations in the 2022 review of the hot school meals programme. When the committee went back to the Department of Social Protection, it said that what is funded is food only and that the recommendations of the 2022 report related napkins, cutlery, food waste and bank charges. There was no mention of the time of the principal, heating or electricity. I presume, from the witnesses perspective, that these are additional costs they would like the Department to be aware of, in the first instance, and that it would consider and contribute towards.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
Absolutely. The two biggest costs are electricity - running the ovens, which are serious machines - and the human cost. The food is dropped off at 6 a.m.. The machines go into and run in fridge mode until 11 a.m. when the oven is put on and is run for an hour to reheat the food. As Mr. O'Byrne and I have said, the supplier funds a person to prepare, load and unload and deliver the meals to the classrooms. However, if in the future one provider were to become a stand-alone operator and not have to compete against any other, it might pull that back. If costs get higher, it might have to pull it back.
Small rural schools do not have that option. They have to have a certain number of pupils before a provider will offer that. If that goes away, the school meals programme will not work at all because teachers and SNAs cannot do it.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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It was mentioned that procurement is usually a job for principals and that this involves labour as well.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
As Mr. McCarthy alluded to, the big one is the cost of electricity. It is hard to quantify how much it costs to run those convection ovens. Everything else is covered by our service provider. I cannot speak on behalf of other people, but our service provider provides napkins, forks and disposal. Every school gets a rebate and is told it is to offset electricity costs and personnel costs. We employ our caretaker for an additional hour every day. He is in charge of looking after the hot meals. The meals come at 8 a.m. They go into the oven, are heated and are ready to go. We try to do it close to when the children eat them so the food does not become soggy. Then it is up to the caretaker to go around and get rid of the waste. That is covered by the service provider through a rebate process. It is clear from the start what the rebate is for, namely to cover the costs.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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What I am hearing is that the energy or electricity cost relating to heating or cooking the food is a new and additional cost for schools. It then depends on the model schools have and whether the individual labour is done through the ETBs or the schools. Not every school has an additional staff member provided by the provider, so there is a potential additional cost involved for some schools.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
Yes. It varies. Even the operations of the service provider we use vary. The process in my school is that the food comes in and we cook it in a conventional oven, whereas in my child's school, which uses the same provider, the meals come precooked and are given out. Even the operational models of the same service provider vary from school to school.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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What the committee is hearing is that there should be an updated assessment of the cost of administering and running these schemes and that their operation should relate better to the funding that is provided.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. This is our sixth session on the hot school meals programme. It has been an eye-opener, and it has been great to get all the feedback.
On feedback, Dr. O'Sullivan mentioned that the hot school meals programme demonstrates a positive impact on the nutritional intake of children and young people. I thank Mr. O'Byrne for his contribution. I was particularly interested in his what he had to say because he has been running the programme for the past five years. Not many people have been running it for that long. He mentioned that the hot school meals programme has been overwhelmingly positive for children's health, well-being, concentration and sense of belonging. Getting on with the supplier seems to really help as well. He seems to have a great relationship with his supplier. Well done to Áine on being a student and looking at this programme.
I am delighted to see that 72% of students said they have tried new food because of the hot school meals programme and that 83% of parents thought it was a great idea to roll it out to other schools. The witnesses concluded by saying that there are challenges. They summed up those challenges very well. That is what we are hearing.
Mr. McCarthy mentioned that the hot school meals programme has to be seen as a positive step forward and that food poverty exists in Ireland and is often hidden, which is something I did not think of at the start of this process. It is really positive. I fully appreciate that there are extra funding issues and administrative burdens, but each of the witnesses has said how important this is to children and their well-being. Last week, Darina Allen came before the committee and told us that the hot school meals programme is not fit for purpose, even though her own family business is supplying to the hot school meals programme. I completely disagree. Mr. McCarthy also said that perfect is the enemy of good. I could not agree with him more. I thought it was a great statement.
Throughout these six sessions on the hot school meals programme, we have met with school management bodies, people from Barnardos and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, teacher and principal associations and the witnesses before us. We have not had any food suppliers before us. Have any of the witnesses worked out what would be the extra costs to make what is involved manageable? Boards of management were before us two sessions ago. I asked them whether anybody has worked this out. Everybody is talking about the administrative burden and the cost involved, but nobody has fed back, for this report, how much it is going to cost schools on average in order that we can outline that in the report to the Government and say that they need an extra €1 or fifty cent per child. Some of the suppliers are supplying ovens. They would say that the cost involved in running a 2.8 KW oven for entire time it is on is the same the cost of operating a hair dryer. I would love to know what extra costs are there.
In terms of the waste, if one in every five children is missing up to four weeks of school per year, is that a contributing factor to the waste? Maybe the mam, parent or guardian has ordered the food at the start of the week, and the child is not in on a Wednesday or something like that. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a teacher and she seems to be well able to get some of the lunches that are left over to eat herself. She really enjoys them.
Those are my questions. One is whether anybody has worked out a cost or what they feel in their school is would cost to make it manageable. The other is whether some of our waste to do with the fact that we have an absentee problem in schools at the moment since Covid.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
I have not done the maths. I would not have the time for that. Talking about the human cost, you are looking at employing someone in my school for three hours a day. That involves coming in, unloading the lunches, reloading them in either the order that the meal is, either all together or by class, turning on the oven, which runs for an hour, unloading it, delivering to the classrooms and collecting the waste afterward. It is probably three hours of work a day in my school, or 15 hours a week. That is the human cost. As Mr. O'Byrne said, we are a medium-sized school. There are 150 children in my school. If they want to take that as a standard and multiply or divide it based on schools of a similar size, they can.
Electricity costs are really hard to quantify. That was one of the points that I made in my opening remarks. There is no standard that tells you how much it should cost to run a school for 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 children. You are always texting, guessing and taking photographs of bills and sending them to people and asking whether the amount involved seems right to them. I am sure that someone could figure out, based on the kilowattage of the ovens, what it is costing the schools.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Would it be as simple as looking at a school that did not have the hot school meals programme last year but that it has it this year, and the difference in the energy costs between the two?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
To link it to what Mr. McCarthy said, it is very hard to quantify the actual costs. If there was a set figure per child, because every school is going to vary in the context of its size and student population, and if a pilot of the scheme were run during an entire school year, principals could then be asked if the costs relating to electricity, etc., were covered. The administrative costs are fairly straightforward. Mr. McCarthy said it there that it is probably three hours per day of 15 hours per week to employ someone for a medium-sized school. We have 160 pupils.
The Senator asked about waste factors. There is no doubt that absenteeism is a contributing factor. We are fortunate enough in our school that we are bucking the average trend. Our school is at 92.6% attendance at the moment. We had a chronic December, as I think everyone had, where we were down to about 84.7%, but in general-----
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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A lot of flu.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
We are bucking the trend, but I think it is because we provide that wraparound support model. I always say that to parents. We are much more than a school. We are a community and we are an entity. There is a lot of negative publicity surrounding the area in general, but we are the real positive. We have grown our school by 80% in four years. We have come to a stage where we are full in certain classes, whereas four years ago we had four or five. Wastage like that cannot be factored in. If a child is out sick one week, that cannot be factored in.
What we do work really strongly on is if a child has come in in the past two weeks and has not touched their hot food, the HSE is on to the mum, dad, whoever is at home, the guardian, and is discussing whether they want the hot meal. It is waste. It is going in the bin every day. We have a two-week process. If they are gone for two weeks, we withdraw it. We always have that conversation and they are always welcome to re-enter whenever they want. There is no problem whatsoever. We do support parents around children bringing in their own lunches. We have a healthy eating policy in place, so it does replicate it, but I agree that there is more nutritional value in a hot meal than there would be in a cold meal.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their statements. As some of my colleagues have said, we have heard a lot about the hot school meals programme over the past few weeks. It is overwhelmingly positive. Everybody agrees that it is a worthwhile scheme, but there are, of course, problems.
A lot of questions have been asked already. Mr. O'Byrne talked about the holiday hunger and the way he addresses it in his school. I am really interested in that. He is saying that there are camps going on in the school over the summer and that they get the meal with that. Is that summer provision or are they separate camps?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
That is summer provision provided by the Department of education. Throughout the years, there would have been a process where Peter would be robbed to pay Paul. Maybe the school completion programme or Barnardos might run it. In King's Island a few years ago, we came to loggerheads with a lot of the agencies working with the children in the area. What would happen is that a lot of the camps were running side by side. Johnny might go to the aquadome with the school on Monday and might not go to camp on a Tuesday but might to go youth service, because they go to the aquadome on Tuesday as well. He might pull out and go to Barnardos on Thursday and to the aquadome as well. We were finding that they were running in parallel. Then we found there was a freeze in camps toward the end of July and a complete freeze in August when no camps were running. Kids could possibly have six weeks of lying idle.
What we did is we came together. We have a network called the King's Island Child and Family Support Network, where we come together and work on summer provision, roughly around the March period. We said that the school will offer universal provision. Every child in the school is offered a summer camp for the first two weeks in July. Then Barnardos offers the two weeks in late July and the youth service provides provision in August. Some of our kids could have an extended provision of up to six weeks in summer. I always say six weeks is enough. They need two weeks of downtime to recuperate, recharge their batteries and get ready to come back to school in late August. It is that collaborative method. As a country, we need to get away from that silo model. We have it all over the country. We need collaborative thinking and co-operation. Between interdepartmental agencies, we need joint commissioning as well.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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That is excellent. Mr. O'Byrne is right. You hear so many others were not even providing summer provision in the special schools because of excuses around the school not being allowed to be used. Our schools are public property. While they have to be looked after, cared for and everything, they should be, if possible, used all during the summer. Is it just one school or is it a number of schools in the area?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
There is a number of schools. In fairness to the Department of education - I am going to compliment on one hand and take it away on the other - it has increased the amount of camps available. For us to be able to offer universal supervision, the teachers who run the camps are heavily educated practitioners who know the children inside out, which is really important.
It was our first year this were where we trialled a new basis. From the network I spoke to the Senator about, there was a lack of provision from children transitioning from preschool into primary school. For one week at the start of July this year, we offered a summer camp to incoming junior infants. The teacher, in fairness, stepped up to the mark. The incoming junior infant teacher decided to do the camp for one week so kids coming into the school in junior infants had one full week of being in our school in July.
That transition process was transformational because they were used to the school. We tried to extend that provision to our extended learning opportunities co-ordinator, who met the children for transitions in August. Sometimes what children remember in July is very different from late August. It came to a stage where we probably had too many transitions and parents said they had had enough of the school, that they knew what it is like and they would see us in a few weeks' time. We need to offer that. Áine knows the significance of moving from preschool to primary and primary to post-primary. A significant transition is the move from post-primary to tertiary. People can be lost in the tertiary sector. The transitional pieces are important.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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That is excellent. It is something a lot of other areas could learn from in terms of the collaborative approach. I want to pick up on something others said and I am sorry if I am repeating myself. Áine said the food comes in cardboard containers which cannot be recycled because of the grease or dirt from food. Can they be composted? What happens to that waste?
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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In other schools stuff is put into the bin. That is something that has to be addressed. There is food waste and we have talked about portion sizes and what happens to the food. The packaging waste is also something that has to be addressed. The idea would be that food is served on plates with cutlery which is washed afterwards, but I know such facilities are not available in a lot of schools. We would love to work towards the provision of proper canteen space.
Students having time to eat and where they eat were issues raised last week. Are they issues the witnesses have come across? Before the scheme, students had a sandwich and would run outside to play while eating. When they have to sit down to eat hot school meals, there may not be enough time during a half-hour break to go out and run around.
Ms Áine O'Leary:
Obviously the children want to go outside and play. That is their main priority rather than eating their lunch. If a teacher could tell children they have ten minutes to focus on eating their lunch, perhaps that might make them more mindful when eating. It might also reduce food waste rather than them saying they do not have enough time to eat their lunch or anything like that. If there was a certain allocated time where teachers could tell students they should focus on eating their lunch and then they could go outside, that might reduce complaints about there not being enough time to eat lunch.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
It varies. We have 15 minutes in and 15 minutes out for big break. Students get 15 minutes' eating time and 15 minutes in the yard. I would counterargue that 15 minutes in the yard for big break is enough physical activity for a child. It is the lesser of two evils. We have to accommodate the academic needs of children and get back into learning. We try to have as much physical activity as possible in school throughout the day.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you very much.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for the opening statements which were very informative. It is great to see that this is seen as a positive intervention. However, given the scale at which it is growing, we have to improve it. I am struck by Mr. O'Byrne's submission on holiday hunger and food poverty. He said some children in school may receive up to 15 meals per week during term time. Is there any provision outside of those times in terms of food parcels or support for families?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
I alluded to that before the Deputy came to the meeting. We have summer provision. There are two weeks of universal summer camps in the first two weeks of July where children are fed throughout the day. Over the past three years we were very fortunate, through the Children's Rights Alliance, to be part of the child poverty fund at Christmas time. All of our families in the school receive a voucher for a local butcher and supermarket.
There are definitely areas where such support could be extended. There are a full two weeks at Easter. As I said, a lot of the outside activities we provide are funded by philanthropy rather than by the Departments of Social Protection or Education and Youth. If we want to break down inequities and inequalities across the board, we know primary schools have a huge relational value with parents. They come to us with their greatest needs. We are best placed to provide support services, but that is not done through the Department of Education and Youth but rather the Department of Justice or youth workers. The school day could be extended beyond 3.15 p.m. Schools should be open for Easter provision. There is no reason they cannot be if the scheme is funded properly to allow them to be hubs of activity.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Does Mr. O'Byrne see that as an extension of the hot school meals programme? He referred to what other Departments could bring to the table. Does he think something can be done within the context of the hot school meals programme?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
It definitely coincides. This is the first year that the Department of Social Protection stepped up and funded some provision. In previous years, our budget from the Department of Education and Youth had to cover food provision. We were able to operate much more efficient camps with better activities and greater trips because we did not have to pay for food provision. It was funded through the Department of Social Protection. All of our money from the Department of Education and Youth was spent on child-related activities. Joined-up thinking benefited the children in front of us. They had much more beneficial summer camps this year than in previous years because there was a greater amount of funding.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I agree that it makes the running of those activities easier when it is known that there is a supply of food for camps and activities. I am also struck by the information provided on choice for some schools. In Mr. McCarthy's school, children are offered five menu options per day, which has expanded to 13 options daily with 26 options across a week. Is his school an outlier or do other schools have as many options?
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Do students have that choice?
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Do parents know about the choice that is there?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
A hundred per cent they do because the children see what other children in the class have and go home and ask their mammy and daddy to change to something else. At times it can be difficult to help parents to work the app, but that is all part of the job of running a school. Part of managing the programme is helping parents to access the app, which might sound like an easy thing but it is not.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That is one of the practical things I have come across. The app enhances people's experience and views of the programme. Some parents may not realise that there is so much choice out there. Another major component of the programme is the administration. Schools are, in effect, administrators of a social protection scheme. It takes up a lot of time. Does Mr. McCarthy have specific reference recommendations on how we can take away the burden on schools? Is it about funding or finding someone to take on the responsibility for the programme?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
As I have mentioned, humans are the way to go. We need funding going directly to schools for somebody to prepare and distribute the food and manage the waste on a daily basis. If that person is the person who also liaises with parents and helps them to figure out the app, that would be a great idea.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Would that be somebody in a school or from the provider side?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
At the moment the providers fund it, but the person doing the work is found by the school because it is somewhat local. In our school, our cleaner works additional hours on the hot school meals programme. The concern I have expressed is that, at some point in the future, the supplier may choose not to provide that to schools. At the moment, any school with fewer than 100 pupils does not have the option available to it because it is not fiscally viable for a provider to have someone in a school. Funding needs to come from the Departments of Social Protection or Education and Youth.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. McCarthy.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I have quite a few questions and will try to address separate questions to each witness.
I will start with Mr. McCarthy and with a question that is a bit left of field. Does he believe all of this is with the right Department? I was a teacher myself and know that you can have a really good rapport with the Department of education and suddenly find yourself transacting with the Department of Social Protection. Does Mr. McCarthy have any ideas or thoughts on that? Is it unusual that his school is transacting with the Department of Social Protection?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
It is definitely unusual. I would be very afraid that a move to the Department of education would take money away from something funded in the area of education. If the education-related money is protected and the funding continues to come out of the Department of Social Protection, I am all in favour of it; however, if responsibility moved to the Department of education and the money moved with it, that would be great. An example of where things can go badly with money management is the free books scheme. The relevant money within the Department of education comes out of the Department of social inclusion. It comes out of the budget that meant to be for addressing disadvantage. Therefore, a universal programme is being funded by the Department of social inclusion. That does not make sense.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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All things being the same, if there were a ring-fenced fund, would it potentially be simpler to interact? It just seems convoluted at the moment.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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My next question is for Mr. O’Byrne. He does not have to divulge his school’s finances. This question is also a bit left of field. This is our final session on school meals. We have heard at previous meetings, on previous topics, that schools have huge water bills arrears. On the one hand, we are asking children to enjoy free school lunches paid for by the taxpayer while on the other hand charging for their water. Many schools have told us they have run up water arrears bills of thousands of euro. Is there unfairness in saying the water should be paid for, the food is free and the waste should be taken home?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
In Limerick, there is a constant barrage of questions on who is in high arrears with Irish Water. Nearly every school has an arrears bill of five figures and some have arrears bills of nearly six figures. We are talking about €100,000 in some cases. We do not have the money to address this.
Much of what we do in our school is philanthropically funded. The school’s core needs, such as heating, electricity and ancillary staff, are not covered by our capitation under DEIS. We are grossly underfunded. We provide a wraparound support model in the school. We have therapeutic supports running for five days per week. As alluded to, we have an extended learning opportunities co-ordinator. We have a private speech and language therapist funded once per week, and we are active in respect of the school completion programme. None of these resources, which make a huge difference in our school and in the lives of children from the most marginalised communities, is funded by the Department of education.
Yesterday, Mr. McCarthy and I met the Minister, Deputy Naughton, about the DEIS plus network. That needs to be rolled out with immediate effect in schools. We are struggling. Philanthropic funding is great and we have a bustling Exchequer and booming economy but what will happen when we hit a recession if the funding is not streamlined and we cannot provide necessities to the most marginalised children in the country?
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. O’Byrne. This committee is producing a report. I formally propose that we recommend in it a strike-out of all water charge arrears and no charges going forward. It is immoral to be given the free school meals while having to pay for the glass of water. I do not know any school that is fully on top of its bills. I have heard from Irish Water, the Government and many other partners that no one is going to be shutting off the supply to schools anyway, so the charge is a bit of a dud to begin with, if you ask me.
I will keep going with the questions if that is okay. I want Dr. O’Sullivan’s view on takeaway culture. She will see our desks are covered in paper. She can image the reaction if we, as adults, were told to push that paper to the left of our desks, eat out of cartons, bring those cartons home and bin them if we have bin contracts. It reinforces bad practice.
Some of the committee members were in Finland last week. What was really striking was how simple the Finnish arrangement was. We are all guilty of overthinking this. There were plates, knives and forks. The children served their own food and controlled their own portions. With their napkins, they pushed the food waste into a designated bin. The napkins were put in another, and the plates were washed. I am wondering whether Dr. O’Sullivan could comment on where we eat, how we eat and how convoluted we have made our model? Does it reinforce bad habits?
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
Absolutely. The Cathaoirleach has described the problem and part of the solution. Dining with other people and the social interaction involved are very basic. Ultimately, even things like using plates are important. We often use a plate model to educate on food, indicating how much of each food component should be on a plate. This is not being used if there is a takeaway model. The dining environment and the social element are critical. Eating out of boxes is an issue. The look of it and the feel of the food are not conducive to developing good eating habits, such as dining at a table and with friends. The more the system can mirror what would be optimal, the better. In Finland and certain other countries, the model allows children to see the food. In summertime, they might even see some colourful food. It is about very obvious, normal practices but the infrastructure and funding are not in place here to implement the model. Some of it is not that difficult but it is about trying to fit a model into existing services that were developed over decades in other systems.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Dr. O’Sullivan. I am sorry for squeezing in a lot. I want to ask the youngest person in the room a question for older people. When children and teenagers go home from their primary and secondary schools, there may be unused meals. Presumably, these go in the bin. When Áine did her survey and spoke to her peer group, teachers and so on, did she believe there was any way at all to address the matter of unused school meals? There is a fabulous website called www.toogoodtogo.com. Where a participating restaurant has cooked too many quiches or lasagnes, some are sold off below cost in the evening to avoid food waste. Is there any way that school meals, if not eaten by everyone in Macroom, could go to elderly people or vulnerable adults in the community in the evening?
Ms Áine O'Leary:
It could very easily be brought in, especially if there is a meals-on-wheels service available in the community. In the main, surveyed primary school students, especially sixth-class students, say that if they are still hungry, they will take an extra meal. It varies among schools. Some schools may have very little waste because sixth-class pupils are eating two or three lunches. If there were a resource whereby food could be sent to disadvantaged people, what the Cathaoirleach suggested could definitely be implemented.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I am sorry I was not here for the opening statements; I was speaking in the Chamber. However, I read all of the submissions before today’s meeting. I am really thankful to all our guests for being here and the work they have put into their statements. In particular, I thank Áine for her research. It was excellent. For somebody in the year she is in to produce such a high-quality document shows she has a very bright future ahead. We are very lucky that she has taken an interest in this topic.
Over recent weeks, we have heard how beneficial hot school meals have been to young people and children around the country. As somebody who worked with the school completion programme for close to two decades, and as a youth worker before that, I saw at first hand the effects of hunger on young people. The challenge, as described by Mr. McCarthy, is that when children are hungry in school, they are not able to concentrate or learn. Their capacity to attain an education appropriate to their needs is being lost. It makes their attendance poor, giving rise to a chance of early school-leaving. It goes in that trajectory.
There are many other factors involved but my concern over the past while has been the nutritional value of some school meals. This does not apply to every school. We have seen fantastic examples in this regard. Next week we are going on a tour to a school in my constituency, St. Ultan’s. I am delighted about this. We are in for a treat because the food there is absolutely gorgeous. However, that is not the case everywhere, unfortunately. I have been contacted by so many people about food that looks hideous. I showed pictures here last week of food that was simply not appropriate. Members here of all parties and none are united in wanting to have the best possible system for students. I hear what is being said about the procurement procedure. How could it be improved? In this regard, Mr. McCarthy should note that I was an ETB employee for a very long time and know how difficult things can be but also how brilliant.
My next point is for Dr. O’Sullivan. The social aspect of eating cannot be underestimated. I have worked for decades with families with no kitchen table and no shared meals. I know of families who, because everybody is working and out of the house, are so busy that they do not eat together. The social aspect must not be underestimated. I was among the group who went to Finland. The Cathaoirleach spoke about how food is presented there. Learning about nutrition and food, which is really important, is part of that.
That becomes part of that.
This is my last point before I get to the question part. We need to think very clearly about the holiday hunger part. Schools are such a support to families throughout the academic year. We cannot be there all the time. How do we do that better?
Our reliance on philanthropic funding is just ridiculous. That is what makes it insecure. The school completion programme is there all the time. They also take breaks. How do we make the service seamless?
What is a better procurement process? With regard to nutrition, how can we make sure that every single provider provides nutritious food? Áine has a question about the social aspect of eating. The last point is about holiday hunger.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
Central procurement by large clusters of schools or areas by the Department of education is probably the better model. It is kind of what we have in Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ETB. It centrally procures for the ten or 12 primary schools that it is over, and the 20 or so community colleges. The weakness of the ETB's procurement and financial system is that because of the interpretation of EU law, every school is seen as having to abide by the same financial and procurement structures as big organisations like the HSE. That derogation needs to be looked at. For things like school insurance and hot school meals where we are awarding contracts of over €100,000 per school, it makes sense that they are clustered together.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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And with regard to the part about nutrition.
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
With regard to the nutrition component, there are guidelines to follow with respect to each meal. They must contain a certain proportion of protein, fibre, fruit and vegetables and so forth. It is also about the way it is implemented. The food itself might actually meet the right criteria in terms of the number of grams of protein, etc., but it is about more than that. How does it look after it has been heated and reheated? Is that more the problem? Does it look like what would be in a nice meal at home on your plate. Is it the container or the packaging? I refer to the message around it. We could meet that but the structure of the food might be quite different and it might not look as well as it should. That is really part of the challenge. It is not just about nutrition but how it looks, how it feels and all of that. If meals have to be in transit, that probably limits it in terms of certain fresh foods that you might otherwise have or it probably excludes certain foods that just do not travel well. That is why I mentioned the international models and having a service where you can be involved in choosing your food. There is a combination of things in that regard.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I might go to Áine to speak about the social part.
Ms Áine O'Leary:
This is kind of off the top of my head but the requirement at the moment is there needs to be two portions of fruit and vegetables, one portion of carbohydrate, and one portion of protein. There is no requirement for any form of calcium or vitamin D. That might be something that needs to be looked into. There could be a re-evaluation of what is needed for the nutrition.
In terms of the social aspect, it is very important for children to be communicating with their peers but if they are mindful when they are eating their food, there might possibly be less waste and they might be thankful for the food that they are receiving.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We will have a second round of questions. Right now, it looks like we will have two minutes each. We might then give extra time to the witnesses. We are firing a lot of questions at them and if there is something they would like to say in a concluding statement, we should have time for that as well. First, I call Senator Tully. She has approximately two minutes and 30 seconds.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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To come back to the whole procurement corpus, which I know the witness said is difficult, how many companies tender for it? Do the schools find it difficult to get companies to tender, or are there lots of companies? I was talking to one school in particular and it said only one company tendered and it was the one that had been providing the meals in the previous year and the quality of the meals were not great. It could be that the money that was being allocated was off-putting. Things may have improved and moved on with the different procedures in place. Are lots of companies interested in this work?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
There are two big issues. One issue is demographics and where your school is actually located and whether it is an easy transit from where the company is transporting the food from. The other issue is the student population. The ones that are struggling to get those options and to have maybe three or four tenderers available may be small schools in remote areas. For me, in the inner city and with medium to big-size schools, there is plenty of competition and plenty of bang for buck.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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If the school is really big, for example, one of the DEIS secondary schools that would be able to avail of this programme at the moment, with between 800 and 1,000 students, would it have difficulties? I mean in the context of preparing that number of meals and getting them to all the students in the school. How many students are in Áine's school?
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Is there no lunch provision at all?
Ms Áine O'Leary:
No, but in my primary school there are 150. It is a rural school. When I was there originally, there were not any hot school meals, it was all cold lunches and the students had to pay for them. Obviously there was a company that could into the school. I do not know what the process was like for getting one but they were able to get a company to come in.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Something that was mentioned last week was thinking outside the box and not working in silos. Perhaps a local community hub could provide school meals to the local schools and also do meals-on-wheels for the older people in the area.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
Locally in Tallaght there is one big secondary school with a big kitchen and a big canteen. One of the suppliers uses its kitchen as the hub to send out meals to the smaller primary schools. If facilities are put into big secondary schools, maybe they could supply local primary schools as well.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses for all the answers. Could we focus on holiday hunger? We really have to get this right. We cannot have huge support and then there is just a cliff edge.
I remember delivering packages at Christmas and wondering what was going to happen at Easter and Hallowe'en. For example, we could have camps or whatever else. Not everybody is linked into a youth service, a school completion programme or other services in the community, so how can we make it a consistent, seamless provision throughout the year?
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
We need to look beyond the Department of education. We need joint commissioning pieces. For example, primary schools in the most disadvantaged areas in the country are normally a hub of activity. They have the greatest relationship with working agencies and also with parents as well. Where we are based, we would consider that we form a hub. We are blessed with the home school community liaison scheme but that finishes at the end of the school day. Ideally, every school in a DEIS area should have a family support worker attached to the school. It would give an opportunity to them to meet parents three or four times a day where there is not an opportunity elsewhere in the community. They could meet them at the breakfast club in the morning, at the infant break time when they go home, at the senior end going home or at the after-school club. It would provide a wraparound support model but based in the primary schools. Corpus Christi Primary-----
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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That would not cover the summer time.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Does Mr. O'Byrne mean to be used by another agency?
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Absolutely. I totally agree. We need to have that joined-up thinking, interagency work and a multidisciplinary approach to how we deal with families in dire need. We must make sure that the bar is not set too low so that people are falling through the cracks.
Mr. McCarthy is in an area where there is a lot of difficulty as well. How would he see it working for his school community?
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
Like Eoghan said, it probably has to be taken out of the school's hands. We cannot be looking at school employees or someone that is coming through school funding but they could use the facilities that are available. Like Eoghan said, family support workers and HSCLs, school completion co-ordinators, and project workers could point families in that direction during the holiday time, as long as it is quite local, as people like to stay local.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank all the witnesses very much. I appreciate their responses.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am the last speaker. I will briefly ask Dr. O'Sullivan a question. I was hugely impressed when Mr. O'Byrne started mentioning the 13 options on the menu, which is incredible from the pupils' point of view.
As he said it, though, I thought it was very complicated. When we were in Finland, we saw there were two meals that had the same base ingredients. One was a vegetarian curry and the other was a turkey curry. Both had rice and vegetables. Are we at risk of offering too many convoluted options? Would it be easier for the suppliers, and even the students, to develop a food culture where there were two meals in the school each day and pupils could choose one or the other? Does Dr. O'Sullivan have a view on that?
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
Ideally, that would be the case, but you would have to take feedback from the current programme on whether there was just a cluster of those being chosen or all of them were being chosen. That could be looked at. If there are things already working and the schools are there, you do not want to unwork it. There could be some work done on looking at that because I do not know the answer - whether it is particular meals or whatever it is. There is some evidence from other programmes that the number of meals is reduced because they are just not being used, so it could be certain types of meals. Again, it is a different culture because people are looking at the food and they have a long history of that in those circumstances.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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My final question is for Mr. O'Byrne, who is a Limerick man. I will ask a Clare question of a Limerick man. We have heard really nice feedback about him, Mr. McCarthy and the schools they lead. They do great work in communities that need additional support. They are doing fabulous work on that.
If I am to imagine this from the suppliers' point of view, it makes good commercial sense to go to a school like Mr. O'Byrne's. It is big, they can come in with volumes of food and the contract makes quite good sense, but there is maybe one gap in how we have investigated this whole body of work. There are rural schools, for example, Carrigaholt National School, in an area I am sure Mr. O'Byrne has been in over the summer. It is a beautiful place that is way down the Loop Head Peninsula, but the school cannot get a local supplier. If I am a supplier, it makes sense to supply city centre or suburban schools, as my delivery van can get volumes of food delivered quickly and hot, without too much hassle, and the contract makes sense. Would it be good to couple urban, semi-urban and larger schools with the more peripheral schools in west Clare or west Limerick? From the contractors' point of view, if they are going into St. Mary's National School or to King's Island, they would also have to take on a contract for a school that is 11 or 12 miles down the road. It is like a Big Brother effect. If a contractor is getting two or three city centre schools, it would also have to fulfil three or four more rural contracts way back west. Does Mr. O'Byrne have a view on that? I am sorry, as I am throwing him a bit of a curveball.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
Again, it is demographic based. The Cathaoirleach is talking about west Clare; I holiday in Kilkee. If the procurement process is taken away from schools and centralised, why not create a west Clare hub that facilitates all the schools in west Clare, where they have no option but to go to that supplier? It would ensure consistency around quality and nutritional value and would meet the purpose.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I would love to see that. Maybe it is happening, but I would hate to think different suppliers are passing each other on the road back to west Clare when one supplier could get a contract for 12 or 14 schools. If it is made viable for them, suddenly the pricing metric we have, which people bemoan, will start to make a bit more sense. It would be more sustainable and procurement could work better.
I will mention what was an eye-opener for me. We knew some bits of this, and many of us are involved in various strata of education, but the one thing I did not know, which I think Mr. McCarthy mentioned, was that principals had to give feedback to the unsuccessful supplier. I do not know who said it-----
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I started sweating when I heard that because it is almost legalistic. I know suppliers are generally decent people, but principals could go through the wringer if, for example, Mr. O'Byrne picked a supplier down the road that happened to give the school team a set of jerseys or whatever. Other suppliers could ask why the school did not talk to them. It is putting principals in a very unfair position where they have to play God and make commercial decisions. I understood there was a bit of procurement and principals would be logging on in July and August, which is itself woeful, but the fact they have to give feedback is-----
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
I spoke to a deputy principal from a primary school in Limerick city who just went through that procurement process. Principals are supposed to give feedback on a range of things, such as nutritional quality, food safety standards, disposal and so on. They have to score suppliers on that and give feedback in their box on the form. This deputy principal gave maybe one to two lines and sent that to the Department of Social Protection. The Department came back to him and said that would not suffice and that if he did not increase the amount that was on it, he could be open to legal outcomes with regard to the suppliers that were not successful. He mentioned the tone used by the Department of Social Protection. The word "legal" was used; there could be legal ramifications. Again, that is only adding stress and duress to that deputy principal, who is going above and beyond to go through the procurement process with three different suppliers, only for the Department of Social Protection to use that type of terminology. The term "legal ramifications" was used in an email.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Unfortunately, under the system the Department has set up, principals are being legally compromised. As public representatives, we have seen procurement go right and wrong. Procurement can be legally challenged, so we do not want to see a school principal being hauled in some time.
I have gone way over my time; I apologise. I will give each one of you-----
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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We will stay behind after class.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We will give each witness an extra two minutes. We will start with Mr. McCarthy.
Mr. Conor McCarthy:
I re-emphasise the overall positive impact the hot meals programme is having. Mr O'Byrne and I were chatting outside because we know each other a bit. One or two media outlets pulled things out of the statements we submitted beforehand and all they took was the negative. We both came here today absolutely determined to emphasise the positives of this because, in a similar way over the last couple of weeks, it was the negatives that made the headlines. What has been ignored is that this programme is feeding hungry children consistently every day during the school year. I would welcome any of those media publications updating their stories and retitling them, "School principals call hot meals programme an absolute success and should be developed in the future".
Dr. Maria O'Sullivan:
I reiterate my support for the programme. It is a proven entity in other jurisdictions. It supports children, particularly in the universality of it, and is inclusive. It is an excellent programme in terms of improving outcomes. Moreover, the investment now may have impacts on health down the line, if healthy dietary patterns can be developed, in preventing other chronic diseases into adulthood. There is a knock-on in that. Some very dedicated people are involved in it, as members can see, right through to students and so on. It is something to be supported, although the operational issues are challenging.
Mr. Eoghan O'Byrne:
I will echo what Dr. O'Sullivan and Mr. McCarthy said. Overall, it is a very positive experience. As we alluded to, there are definitely issues with the system. There needs to be a centralised pre-approval process for any vendor or supplier that steps on school grounds to look for school business. From listening to previous Oireachtas committee meetings and witnesses, ideally, in a utopian state, we would love to have this continue inside individual schools, but we have a budget and budgetary constraints and that is not an option at the moment. We have alluded to small fixes that can be enacted fairly quickly and efficiently, which will maximise the programme as well. In general, it is a very positive programme. It is welcomed by the vast majority of school principals, leaders and school communities in general.
Ms Áine O'Leary:
I will echo what these three people said. We are all talking about the negatives of the scheme, obviously, but the scheme has been really positive in its benefits to schools. The main thing is to look at the small parts to see what can be done now, what can be done later and what will take years and years to happen. Children need to be at the centre of all this because it is their lunch at the end of the day. They need to like what they are eating. If this is to be implemented someday into a lot of secondary schools, the primary school programme needs to be refined and improved for primary school children before it can ever be thought of being implemented in a secondary school.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is excellent. The words our committee used time and time again in Finland were "It is so simple".
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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It is so simple, yes.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. O'Byrne mentioned simplifying procurement. Dr. O'Sullivan spoke about simple foods and not going down the overly processed route. Mr. McCarthy and Áine spoke about this too. It is all about simplifying this. It is in itself simplistic to say that, but it will have to be key. We will compile a report arising from this based on the many weeks of work, the testimonies from the witnesses, which have been highly valuable today, and our field trip to Finland. We have to make a school visit to see the programme in action. We have had nutritionists and chefs and even invited Marcus Rashford to talk about his campaign in the United Kingdom, which was very admirable and successful. We have done a huge amount of work.
This is the final meeting we are having regarding the school meals programme. Our report will be out when it is done; there is a bit of work to be done on it. We thank the four witnesses today and everyone over the last few weeks who has contributed.
It has been a learning curve. School meals were not there when we were in school. We have heard positivity from students, parents and teachers. Everyone has said there are good things happening under the scheme but it needs refining.
We have a great clerk to the committee, Tara, and we have Jack, Tom and Trish, who have made notes as we go along. All of this will feed into a report that will be published by the committee in the coming weeks. Hopefully, elements of that report will make it centrally into Government policy. Hopefully, it might improve what school meals look like in Áine's school and that Mr. O'Byrne and Mr. McCarthy and other principals are not as burdened with this going forward. That is where we hope to get to.
I sincerely thank all the witnesses. I thank the committee's secretariat and the technical team here in the room.