Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have a question about Mary Queen of Angels Schools 1 and 2 in Ballyfermot which share the same campus. Both applied for the hot meals scheme. One school was successful but the other was not. The fear of the boards of management and the principals is that there will be a preference among parents to enrol their children in the school that provides the hot meals and the other school will be left behind.

I concur with the points made by Deputy Murphy about the inequality of the system and the unfairness of running hot meals on a lottery rather than on where they are needed. That must be questioned in the wider scheme of things in terms of the need for this programme. The Minister for Social Protection, in her response to my parliamentary questions, acknowledges that this is a good thing. As has been said, proper nutrition, particularly for younger children, is hugely important. There is a problem with obesity in children throughout the country but particularly in areas of low income and disadvantage. Rolling out a proper hot meals school programme is not radical but is really just catching up with where the rest of Europe has been for many decades. Hot meals are given out in schools in Britain and there is no question of a lottery. In fact, there is not a question of it not happening and the same is true in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Cyprus, to name but a few. This has been normal practice in Europe where if one works in a large factory, one expects to have a decent canteen and when one goes to school, one also expects to have a decent canteen providing hot meals. Telling us that providing cold meals is good enough is unacceptable. I was getting sandwiches and milk in school when I was a kid and that is a long time ago. We need to move on and provide hot meals to all children.

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