Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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There is no Minister here yet to deal with the first issue. With the House's permission we will proceed to Deputy Bríd Smith. The matter will be taken by the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming. Deputy Smith has four minutes, followed by the Minister of State for four minutes, followed by a further two minutes each.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Okay. Is there no way I could have two minutes and add the other two on at the end or anything like that?

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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No. I am bound by the rules of the House.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Chairpersons are awful. They never allow me to break the rules.

The main reason I wanted to raise this is because in my area we had new schools added to the DEIS list. That was very welcome because, until lately, on one side of the Long Mile Road was the Assumption school in Walkinstown, one section of which did not have DEIS status, and across the road was Drimnagh Castle, where boys go to school, and which had DEIS status. Kids from one family, street or area were treated differently even though their socioeconomic status was the same. This has been a huge anomaly that I believe the Department has been trying to address. We need an updated report on that because we are getting mixed messages from some parts of the country as to whether it is working or not.

My main point is on the question of hot meals. Last year it seems it was announced that hot meals would be extended to over 300 DEIS schools and a total of €94 million or whatever would be spent on them. The Minister of State can go through the figures. I am sure he is prepared for them. When many of the schools went to access the hot meals system, they were told it was not there. It seems the budget fell well short of what it should have been. As one of the principals said, somebody forgot to mention it in the budget. I think that has been sorted out since but I would like a comprehensive answer on whether or not it has been sorted out.

Will the Minister of State comment on the system of reporting and accounting that schools must engage in to the Department of Social Protection and, potentially, the Department of Education? I understand from some schools this is quite cumbersome and difficult for them, particularly when they are not resourced with staff to deal with that. We all know from the series of disputes and day strikes school secretaries had that they are overburdened, underpaid and undervalued. To ask them to take on that extra work, particularly if it is a cumbersome and difficult accounting system, would not be fair. Schools should be resourced to have somebody to deal with meals, accounting for them and accounting to the Department.

My other question is something that is not out of the hands of the Department and we should be keeping an eye on it. I would like to know what the Minister of State will do to address it. It concerns food inflation, which is above all other types of inflation, apart from energy. Food inflation is 9% or 10%. I think in some quarters of last year it went above that to 11% and 12%. That has put a huge burden on households but clearly is also a factor in the provision of hot school meals. It is a paltry sum that is allowed for each child in each school but some schools have managed to deal with local companies who have given them school meals for the allowed sum. I am not sticking up for the companies but for the provision of hot food for the children. We need to look at that rate because of food inflation.

As I always argue, workers, pensioners and people on social protection need a pay rise that matches inflation. Equally, we need an increase in the allowance for hot school meals that matches inflation, which is still running at 9% to 10% in the case of food inflation. That is not to say companies are not making profit out of it but there needs to be a matching of the funding. I know at least one major company in Dublin that is struggling to continue to provide hot meals at the current rate.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys. I thank the Deputy for raising this issue.

The school meals programme funds the provision of food to some 1,600 schools and organisations, benefitting 260,000 children. The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to enable them to take full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. At budget time, the Government provided €94.4 million for the school meals programme for 2023.

In recent years, entry to the school meals scheme has been confined to DEIS schools, in addition to schools identified as having a level of concentrated disadvantage that would benefit from access to the programme. Prior to the introduction of DEIS, all schools and organisations that were part of a number of Department of Education initiatives for disadvantaged schools were eligible to participate in the various programmes. These initiatives included Breaking the Cycle, giving children an even break, the disadvantaged area scheme, home school community liaison and the school completion programme. These schools and organisations have continued to remain in the scheme since the introduction of DEIS in 2005 but their level of funding has been capped at the same rate year on year to allow for the concentration of the programme on DEIS schools. There were a variety of schemes but DEIS is the principal programme in place now, notwithstanding some are still in the system from prior to DEIS's introduction.

The Minister is committed to continuing to grow the school meals programme and, in particular, the hot school meals element, building further on the significant extensions announced in the last few budgets. In March 2022, the Minister for Education announced an extension of DEIS status to an additional 320 schools from September 2022. In July, the Minister for Social Protection announced that access to the hot school meals option would be extended to 282 newly designated DEIS primary schools and that the cold lunch would be extended to the 38 newly designated DEIS secondary schools. This extension applied from September, benefitting some 60,000 children. This allowed all pupils in new DEIS schools to avail of one a substantial meal for the additional budget provided.

Last week, the Government approved an additional €14.5 million to allow access to the hot school meals programme for all remaining DEIS primary schools from September 2023, benefiting 64,500 children. These schools currently have access to cold lunches funding. In addition, the Government has approved the commencement of the roll-out of the hot school meals programme to non-DEIS primary schools. There are no secondary school children in receipt of the programme as it is aimed at primary schools with no on-site cooking facilities.

In 2022, the Minister for Social Protection commissioned the evaluation of the school meals programme to review all elements thereof. The final report was recently received and is being reviewed. This report will help to inform future decisions around this important programme.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I concur with what she said about the issues of inclusion of various schools in DEIS, with other schools not being included. We have the exact same situation in many areas. I know of areas where the same families are going to the same school. A school on one side of the road is in the DEIS area and a school on the other side of the road, is not. The area is continually being reviewed.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the Minister of State for the written report, because it is good to have all those facts in writing. What I wish to ascertain concerns the problem that arose last year, having had the announcement from the Government that all DEIS schools would have access to the meals programme of hot meals for national schools and cold food for secondary schools, with regard to schools throughout the country. The deputy head of the Irish Primary Principals' Network, IPPN, Ms Tobin, has stated she must tell parents it is not the case that this scheme has been expanded to their school. Ms Tobin has stated she is sure other schools that joined DEIS have had meals from day one and she is really disappointed. She expressed the hope that someone in the Government will address this as we cannot have children going without lunches and she thinks parents will be raging. Has that legacy issue been dealt with? Is there now no problem with schools being able to access the scheme if they try?

Having received the Minister of State's report, I will raise the question of the lack of availability or funding of hot meals for secondary schools. This is wrong. It will not, in the long term, save the State any money, because many teenagers leave school at lunchtime to buy chips or chicken roll sandwiches, which are not good for their health, cause obesity and are very expensive for parents. We are living in a cost-of-living crisis and I do not need to tell the Minister of State or anybody else in this House, how that cost-of-living crisis really hurts parents trying to afford food for children. If a parent is forking out for a chicken roll or chips every lunchtime for his or her secondary school, adolescent, growing or going-through-puberty child, the parent is paying €38 to €40 per week, on top of all the other expenses. It is really not on and the Department should be seeing the responsibility of the provision of hot meals for all children, including secondary school children, as a priority.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I understand the point the Deputy makes and the level of interest for the school meals programme is a clear sign of the need for its expansion. It is something the Minister for Social Protection is prioritising. The issues being highlighted today are being prioritised by the Minister. As part of the measures announced by the Government last week, access to the hot school meals is being extended to the remaining 372 DEIS primary schools and all special schools from September. I stress that. There are not as many special schools throughout the country but those are children who have most severe and profound difficulties and, up to now, all schools were not included. A key priority is that this will happen and be in place this September, in addition to the DEIS schools.

It will result in the number of schools that have access to the hot meals scheme increasing from 37 to more than 900, during the term of this Government. The Minister for Social Protection will also bring forward a proposal for the roll-out of the hot school meals programme to non-DEIS primary schools and significant additional funding has been provided for the programme. The total budget following this extension of the programme now stands at €108.9 million for 2022. This represents a 76% increase in funding only since 2020. In this regard, the evaluation of the school meals programme that the Minister commissioned last year will inform future policy decisions of the school programme. The final report was received recently and is currently being reviewed. Consequently, I am not in a position to give any further details.

However, it will be published - that is very important - in the coming weeks and it will finally acknowledge the issue the Deputy mentioned with the system of accounting for the schools meals system. That is, of course, an extra burden and perhaps there can be more liaison with the contractors who regularly provide these directly to the school in a way. Perhaps they can work closer together to simplify the system. However, I understand there is an additional burden from an administrative point of view. The issue of food inflation is obviously something that will have to be taken account of in the budget, coming up next September or October, for the next school year.