Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Whelan for raising this important matter and for giving me the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Department of Social Protection. The Department administers the school meals programme as a targeted intervention for children at risk of food poverty and educational disadvantage. The programme provides funding towards the provision of food services for disadvantaged children through two schemes. The first is the statutory urban school meals scheme, operated by local authorities and part-financed by the Department of Social Protection. The second is the school meals local project schemes, through which funding is provided directly to participating schools and local and voluntary community groups that run their own school meal projects. The programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to some 1,700 schools and organisations, which benefits more than 217,500 children. In view of the benefits of the programme, and despite pressure on the social protection budget over the last number of years, the Government allocated an additional €2 million for the programme in 2015, providing a total allocation of €39 million. The Government had already increased the funding for the programme by €2 million in budget 2013, which was used to extend the scheme to some 100 additional DEIS and special schools, benefitting more than 9,800 additional children.

The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement by children, especially those from the most disadvantaged background. Priority is, therefore, given to schools that are part of the Department of Education and Skills' Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, initiative for disadvantaged schools.The additional €2 million funding provided in 2015 is being used to increase payments to existing DEIS schools with a particular focus on the provision of funding for breakfast clubs, an issue in which the Senator believes strongly and which can provide very positive outcomes for vulnerable children in terms of their school attendance, punctuality and energy levels. There is clear evidence that good nutrition improves the concentration levels of students, and breakfast clubs are particularly effective in this regard. A total of 57 schools and preschools in counties Laois, Offaly and Kildare were approved funding for the 2014-15 academic year at a total cost of €1.3 million. At present, the Department of Social Protection is processing applications for the current school year.