Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for his response. I welcome the work that has been going into this and the efforts that this Government and the previous Government have made in putting forward the hot meals programme. Ultimately, it is there to provide meals to people who might not be in a situation to get them otherwise. This is definitely something we need to encourage. It is a great idea but we do need to monitor waste. In fairness, the Minister's team is working on that. As I have said, the Minister is providing the budget for 682,000 students in 3,700 schools. That is a huge effort and a huge contribution from the State to those children's daily lives. However, as I have said, it is important that we get feedback from the schools that we can analyse to help improve the process they are engaged in.

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