Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

We are agreed that access to a hot school meal is vital, and that is what we are trying to secure. My Department officials have worked incredibly hard since we were informed by the school communities that the companies were withdrawing. We have set up a new process. My officials are regularly in touch with the school communities involved. Many of them have secured a replacement supplier, because there are other suppliers who approached my Department to say they would step in. There are other schools where it is harder to get a replacement provider, but my Department is working with school communities to make the replacement procurement process as easy as possible and in the interim to provide a cold meal. That is not the optimum. I want hot school meals to be provided. It has also given us an opportunity to further pursue Deputy O'Reilly's suggestion from a previous round of questions regarding local providers, such as community food providers, Meals on Wheels and others. Some schools are working with that as well. Ultimately, the aim is to ensure the legislative responsibility for food safety is paramount. That needs to be the responsibility of the operator, not the school community. That is why we have had to make some of those changes.

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