Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Earlier we discussed how DEIS works across Departments and has yielded results. It is unacceptable that the Minister with responsibility for education would not make it her business to ascertain whether schools wish to participate in the school meals programme. The meals are provided in the schools and the Minister funds it, so she should have a primary interest in it, but she is not doing that.

She indicated that not all schools participate in the programme, but 67% in rural areas and over 90% in urban areas do. In many cases they have not been given enough funding to provide school meals for the duration of the school year. A number of them had to stop providing meals during the year when the money ran out. The Minister and her Department must take more responsibility for the provision of this service in schools. I do not understand why it should be under the remit of the Department of Social Protection and why the Minister for Education and Skills would not make it her business to find out how many schools have had to discontinue providing school meals after Easter or March because the money has run out. From the schools' perspective it makes sense to do this, but they do not have the money to provide what they regard as an important service in the second half of the year.

See this speech in context