Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

Representatives of the national Meals on Wheels programme are across the way in Buswell's Hotel. They are looking for more funding. Some 2.8 million meals were provided in 2024. There were 228,000 users of the service.

When the service provides a meal and delivers it to someone, the cost of the meal is €7, and the service charges the person €7. The service does not have funding for the running cost of its vehicles. If anyone goes to any restaurant anywhere, even to get a sandwich, it costs a serious amount. We have people delivering a valuable service, meeting people in their own homes twice a week every week and giving them good nourishing meals, but they are underfunded. We need something to enable them to get extra funding, deliver more services and not do it at a loss.

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