Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The school meals programme provides funding towards food services for some 1,600 schools and organisations, benefiting 260,000 children. The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement.

Budget 2023 provided €94.4 million for the programme. The Government recently approved an additional €14.5 million to allow access to the hot school meals scheme for all remaining DEIS schools from September 2023. On 30 March, I published an independent evaluation of the school meals programme, which sets out the positive impact the programme is having on children's education and well-being.

The evaluation is evidence based and sets out a series of recommendations for expanding the school meals programme into the future. There is an overwhelming consensus among all participants in the evaluation that the school meals programme is effective. This indicates strong support for extending the school meals programme. Since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection, I have increased the number of schools with access to the hot school meal option from 37 to more than 500. I am committed to continuing to expand the school meals programme and building further on the significant extension of the programme that has taken place in recent years. In this regard, I intend to roll out the hot school meals to all remaining DEIS primary schools and special schools from September 2023. This will increase the numbers on the scheme dramatically to 1,000 schools and 150,000 children. From 2024, we will start the roll-out of hot school meals to all remaining primary schools, in line with the recommendation in the report of universal provision by 2030. My ambition is to move faster and I believe we can reach all primary schools sooner than that.

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