Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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74. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the subvention available to the school meals providers is sufficient in view of escalating costs owing to the rate of inflation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [59260/22]

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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This question relates to a programme that I know is as close to the Minister's heart as it is to mine, namely, the school meals programme. As we all know, the cost of putting food on the table has been escalating for everybody in society. In that context, is the subvention available to school meals providers sufficient in view of the inflation in food costs across the board?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to 1,600 schools and organisations benefiting 260,000 children. The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to position them to take full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and greater educational achievement.

Budget 2022 provided €68.1 million for the programme, with an additional €9 million provided to allow access to all new Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, schools from September 2022. Additional funding for the programme has been provided for 2023, bringing the total to €91.6 million. This represents a 49% funding increase in the period since 2020. Funding under the school meals programme can be provided for breakfast, snacks, cold lunch, dinner, hot school meals and after-school clubs and is based on a maximum rate per child per day, depending on the type of meal provided.

In March 2022, the Minister for Education announced an extension of DEIS status to an additional 320 schools from September 2022. In July, I announced that from September, access to the hot school meal option would be extended to the 282 newly designated DEIS primary schools, and the cold lunch option to the 38 newly designated DEIS secondary schools, benefiting some 60,000 children. This means that, since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection, I have increased the number of schools with access to the hot school meal option from 37 to more than 500.

I am committed to continuing to expand the school meals programme and building further on the significant extension of the programme in recent years.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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This has been Green Party policy since God was a boy, going back to the time of Trevor Sargent, who was elected in the same constituency as my party colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien. I feel strongly, as a former primary school teacher, that when children are in front of us, we should feed them well.

The prepared reply the Minister gave me was detailed in some respects but did not go to the heart of the question in others, so before coming to the Chamber I researched on the Department's website the rates that are available. A sum of €2.90 is what is being made available for a hot meal. I understand the economies of scale and so on, whereby it will be cheaper for schools to feed the masses rather than a family feeding four or five at the dinner table, but is that enough for a high-quality, nutritious meal? The figure for breakfast jumped out at me as well, with 60 cent being provided. I am not sure I could put a nutritious breakfast on my table at home for 60 cent. Are we spending enough per meal to ensure we are getting good nutrition into these kids?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State and I are fully committed to the school meals programme. The evaluation is being carried out, and if it recommends an increase in the rates, I will fully support that. If we are going to give children a good, hot dinner in the middle of the day - nothing can beat that - my aim, and I am sure that of the Deputy, is that every child in this country, regardless of his or her socioeconomic background, should get that hot school meal. It makes such a difference.

I am happy to examine the rates but I will have to wait for the outcome of the evaluation programme. I have heard a number of the suppliers say they cannot provide the meals at the rate they are getting, but the process is at an advanced stage and I want to await the outcome.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the Minister. It would be dangerous for me to tell a Monaghan woman how to spend money wisely, but we do not want to be pennywise and pound-foolish here. Our nation's children are the most precious thing we have, and we want to ensure we get a good meal into them. We have started in the correct place, namely, in disadvantaged communities and in DEIS schools, but like the Minister, I would like to see that rolled out throughout the country.

I certainly know that both myself and my missus would be very glad not to have to deal with the bloody lunch boxes every day, which would be another attendant benefit. I fully support that ultimate goal but, as I said, I want to make sure that when the State has the children, we feed them but make sure we feed them well. Let us make sure that we are not just penny-pinching and achieve what I think this programme really can achieve.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I assure the Deputy that we want to make sure children get quality food but we have to wait until the outcome of the review. The Deputy was a teacher and, therefore, he knows first-hand the benefit of feeding children when they are at school. It helps their educational attainment. For those parents who are trying to come up with lunches children might eat, it makes it an awful lot easier if they get their lunch at school, particularly a hot one. I visited a school not that long ago in which there were different menus with different choices for children for the hot school meal. This is particularly relevant to primary schools. I do not know how many times I have pulled blue mould-covered sandwiches out from the bottom of a bag on a Friday evening. It does not matter how nice they are made; the children still manage to not eat them. That is why I am totally committed to this programme.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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We will squeeze in one more question.