Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy. As she knows, the hot school meals programme was established to ensure that children across Ireland have access to safe, nutritious meals during the school day. It is a core Government commitment to support children’s health, well-being, and educational outcomes. The programme is being made available to all primary schools before the end of this year. This will allow 3,200 schools, which cater for approximately 550,000 children, to avail of hot school meals currently provided by 300 suppliers are across the country. Those suppliers are a diverse group of organisations from the large national supplier and regional suppliers to local restaurants and food outlets, as well as Meals on Wheels groups, which we will get the chance to discuss later. The advice my Department has given to schools is that they can procure school meals from any provider they wish as long as they meet the standards set out in the procurement documentation. The evidence is that the vast majority of small school meals suppliers are capable of meeting these standards.

The companies referred to in the Deputy's question, The Lunch Bag and Fresh Today, withdrew their school meals service at very short notice from 79 schools. Four of these schools are special schools and 38 are DEIS schools. It is highly regrettable that the providers acted in this manner, giving virtually no notice to the school communities. The Department immediately contacted the affected schools. They were sent information on 4 September advising them of the options open to them, including procuring a new hot school meals supplier quickly or serving cold lunches in the meantime. Many of them have already procured alternative suppliers, while others are in process. The Department is engaging with the schools that have not responded, to provide support. The programme is designed so that meals are provided by contracted food business operators. This ensures responsibility for food safety and legislative compliance is placed on those professional providers and not on the schools. This also ensures children benefit from a reliable, high-quality service while protecting schools from having to take on responsibilities more appropriate to the food business operators.

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