Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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For 18 years, early bird breakfast clubs have been a huge success in Ballymun. Last year alone, 58,840 breakfasts were served at five DEIS schools in the Ballymun area. Some of the funding for the scheme was provided through the Ballymun local drugs and alcohol task force as well as from other funding sources in different Departments. The BEST project was tasked with managing the scheme and 18 staff, most of whom are working on a part-time basis, administer and operate it.

Children who are served a wholesome breakfast in the morning are better equipped to face a day of learning and concentration in these schools. Some of the children come from highly deprived backgrounds and they need all the supports and help they can get. The loss of the breakfast clubs is a considerable blow, not only to the children but also to their families who rely on these supports and help.

The staff employed by the service receive special training and attend courses in all aspects of child protection. They are trained to the highest standards.

The social interaction between children, who meet friends, teachers and staff, has helped to shape their future. The benefits of sitting down together and having a proper meal in a proper environment should not be underestimated. There is a real fear that standards, which have been improving, will fall and children may lose out, especially those from minority backgrounds.

The BEST project has sought to secure funding but has run into a brick wall. The excuse given is that employing staff is not necessary and schools can handle the service by providing a snack and a lunch. I have spoken to some of the schools and they will struggle hard to do this. It will place significant strain on the schools in question, some of which do not have the necessary resources.

The withdrawal of funding by the task force is regrettable, especially as no other funding stream has been identified. Is funding available from any other source, for example, the Department of Education and Skills, Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection or Tusla? Could funding be found elsewhere to continue employing these staff and help alleviate the problem? The threat is immediate as notices have been served on staff. We will lose the project in Ballymun shortly, which would be a disaster. It has worked well for 18 years in spite of considerable problems in the area where many children are at risk.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this Topical Issue. I also acknowledge that Deputy Noel Rock has been in discussions with me on this issue for more than a month.

To give the Deputy some background, my Department is providing funding for school meals in more than 1,580 schools and other organisations. The programme, which supports more than 248,000 children, will cost approximately €54 million in 2018, which is an increase of €6.5 million over the previous year. It is important to make that point because it makes a valuable contribution and its effect on the lives of the children who avail of the programme is, as Deputy Ellis described, tangible. It is not something fuzzy or woolly. The objective of the scheme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children who are unable, perhaps due to lack of good quality food, to take full advantage of the education being provided to them.

In recent years, priority for new applications for funding has been given to schools that are part of the Department of Education and Skills initiative for disadvantaged schools, Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, in line with the national policy framework for children and young people, Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures. The schools in Ballymun, which are affected by the proposed closure of the breakfast club, all have DEIS status and receive funding from my Department under the school meals programme. That will not change. The breakfast clubs in Ballymun, which Deputy Ellis described as "early bird clubs", are operated by the Ballymun educational support team school completion programme, BEST SCP, and have been part of the Ballymun local drugs and alcohol task force funding provision through Department of Health funding for the past 18 years. The channel of funding is the City of Dublin Youth Service Board and City of Dublin Education and Training Board.

According to the Ballymun local drugs and alcohol task force, the allocation for the 2017 school calendar year was €122,716, and €87,716 to the end of June 2018. The funding provided is used for food, staffing to prepare the food and supervise the breakfast clubs in seven schools during school term, insurance, training, etc., and has been administered centrally by BEST SCP. The rationale for the Ballymun local drugs and alcohol task force funding these clubs was to support school retention and participation, especially for those families struggling to provide basic supports for their children in the mornings. In an effort to maximise its funding and to focus more sharply on individuals, children and families with the most acute needs or at most acute risk due to drugs and alcohol issues, the task force in its allocation for 2018 only approved funding until the end of June and wrote to BEST SCP and local school principals to advise of this.

The task force also allocated additional resources to engage an independent contractor to work with each school to provide support to make the necessary applications and arrangements to ensure breakfasts continued in their schools through the school meals programme, and that they were embedded directly in each school going forward. The contractor has met the Ballymun principals' network and has been in touch with each school to assist in assessing how the breakfast clubs could be provided by the respective schools in future.

The school meals programme has a particular focus on the provision of breakfast clubs because they provide positive outcomes for vulnerable children in terms of their energy levels, punctuality and school attendance. The scheme provides funding for either a breakfast or a snack for all children and lunch for up to 90% of children in DEIS schools for the entire school year from September to June. At present, all of the schools affected are funded for all children for a snack club and a lunch club. If individual schools wish to receive funding for a breakfast club, they will lose their funding for snack clubs and obviously children would get breakfast instead of a snack.

My Department provides funding for food costs to a number of school completion programmes, SCPs, throughout the country. The SCP co-ordinator, who is generally based in one of the larger schools in an area, submits an application on behalf of the schools under its remit. The co-ordinator distributes the funding to the constituent schools and the schools operate the clubs. Occasionally, the SCP will operate the club in one school drawing in the pupils from the other schools under its remit.

My Department has not received any application from BEST SCP to participate in the school meals programme to date. If an application is received, it will be considered favourably. A new round of school meal programmes to be announced next week, for which BEST SCP can certainly apply.

A meeting scheduled for today did not take place. I can only encourage Deputy Ellis, if he has any influence, to ensure this meeting takes place and an application is made.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I acknowledge that the Ballymun drugs task force has made it clear it will not continue to provide the funding of €122,000. I spoke to many of the principals of the affected schools and most acknowledge they can handle a certain reduction in funding.

It is clear this scheme has worked well over the years. I note the Department provides a snack and a lunch, which is reasonable. The parents to whom I have spoken have said these breakfast clubs have been remarkable in how they shaped and engaged with the children in the area. Their benefits have been considerable.

The figure involved is not nearly €122,000 because it is an acknowledgement that it will be possible to obtain the food required for the clubs in the five DEIS schools in the area. The issue is the staff who are employed in the schools for this purpose. One of the principals made clear to me that it will be extremely difficult to manage without these staff. That must be taken into account. If the benefits of the programme are as great as what I have heard and seen over the years, it would be crazy to allow the clubs to close for the sake of the small amount of money needed to retain the necessary staff.

Once again, I plead with the Minister. I will try to speak to BEST and others about engaging, although the organisation has indicated it has engaged. I acknowledge that Deputy Rock spoke to BEST and the Minister. BEST was informed, however, that there is no other Department to which it can turn for funding for staff. This has impacted heavily on its approach.

It is a shame and I urge the Minister to see if she can look at it again, engage and see if the funding can be provided.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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It is obvious how emotionally engaged Deputy Dessie Ellis is on this matter. I do not mean to be patronising, but it is really lovely to see. I am not refusing anybody's help. The first thing my Department does is give money for food, which we gladly give. We already know and appreciate the impact it has and that will not change. The second thing we do is provide money through community employment schemes. We have not reduced it either. If anybody wants to approach us on new initiatives or move places, that is certainly something at which we can look.

The crux of the matter is that for some reason Dublin City Council and the education and training board have decided to stop funding what they have been funding for 18 years, with no explanation and for no obvious reason. I am not shirking my responsibilities and will gladly go with the Deputy and organise a meeting. That is not a problem, but the question has to be asked as to why the task force saw fit to stop doing something in which they saw value for 18 years? The only thing I can do in the short term is to genuinely encourage those involved through the school completion programme to apply for the exceptional needs money where there are cases where SCP co-ordinators help in schools. If I can assist in that way, I will gladly do so, but the real elephant in the room is why an organisation that is funded by the State through the Department of Health saw value in doing something for 18 years and now no longer sees the value in it. It needs to be made responsible to at least answer to us why it has stopped providing the service, what it expects the people who were going to be employed to do. It needs to answer serious questions about why it saw fit to stop funding the service, what it will use the funding for in the future if it will not use it for the seven schools in Ballymun, but, within in my personal remit, they will continue to be supplied with food. That is a given. If Deputies Dessie Ellis and Noel Rock could work together to make sure the meeting that was scheduled to happen today will happen in the next couple of days and an application is made to the SCP, we will look at it on its merits, but it has to be reflective of the practice, goodwill and positive outcomes achieved in the seven schools in Ballymun. The Deputies know that I grew up there and attended one of the schools years ago.