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

I accept the Minister of State's bona fides in terms of this being an important issue about which he feels passionate. The more improvements we can make to the programme, the better. The anomalies must be addressed, however, particularly the situation where one campus is shared by two schools in Ballyfermot, Mary Queen of Angels, and one school gets the hot meals while the other does not. That creates tensions, divisions and problems, particularly as some members of the same family are getting fed in school while others are not.

In reply to my parliamentary question, the Minister says that the objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children who are unable, due to the lack of good quality food, to take full advantage of the education provided to them. I would argue that the provision of nutritious, regular and good quality food to children should not just apply to those who are unable to be fed at home. It should be standard practice to provide for everybody and if that was the case, then the question of a lottery and of inequality in the delivery of such provision would not arise. As I said earlier, we would just be catching up with the rest of Europe.

See this speech in context