Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators for their contributions. I will respond to a few of the issues raised.

Senator Burke raised the issue of jury service and a specific case there. I am happy to look at that. I can get further details from him and I will follow up on that.

The Senator mentioned the hot school meals programmes and where some schools cook on site and some schools get the meals delivered and they are hot when they arrive - they are in containers. Senator Wall raised that as well. By the end of this year, the plan is that all DEIS schools will be able to avail of the hot school meals programme. In addition, I have sent out a request for interest from all primary schools which may wish to enter into the hot school meals programme. It will take a couple of years to roll that out but my ambition is that any child born today should be able to have a hot school meal by the time he or she enters primary school. It is ambitious but this is a very successful programme.

I visited Artane when I launched the programme and the teachers could not speak highly enough about it. It is a great equaliser because every child in that school, regardless of where he or she came from, sat down at the table. They actually turned their chairs round and faced each other, had their dinner and had a conversation. It is a great scheme. I am fully supportive of it. They are able to choose their lunch the previous week and they can decide what menu they want. We monitor it every year to make sure it is good, healthy food that these children are getting. It is a great success. It has been something that I have promoted since I became Minister. It started off with 30 schools and now we are up to 500 schools, and I want to see it rolled out to all primary schools.

On the secondary schools, the DEIS secondary schools have it. Secondary schools are somewhat different because they have an option to get hot school dinners and they can be cooked on site. It is a different option for them. Some want to cook them. For the primary schools, it is delivered, it is hot, your name is on the dinner and you just get it. There is not a huge amount of extra work to it apart from collecting the empty cartons when they were finished. There is no waste. They are all cleaned, and that is good as well.

To move on to Senator Murphy, of course, I had a great day in Roscommon. It was great to see the community in full action there. I am just back today from County Meath. It would do your heart good to see what people right across this country are doing in terms of volunteerism, what they are doing in their communities and how we are helping them to realise their ambition and their vision for their particular areas. I have been around communities. I have been in libraries. I was in remote working hubs today. It is the same all over the country and it is very positive stuff.

Senator Wall also raised the issue around the child in full-time education. Parents who are on low incomes may be able to avail of a number of social welfare schemes that support children in full-time education until the age of 22, including the increase for a qualified child with primary social welfare payments, the working family payment for low-paid employees with children and the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. These are specifically targeted schemes. However, I take on board the point the Senator made because having a child in full-time education is expensive. In fairness, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Simon Harris, has reduced fees. For those children who maybe do not start school now until they are five, when they turn 18 they are in sixth year. They have transition year now and it means that their child benefit stops whenever they reach that age. It is something that I will look at but that will be a matter for the budget. I take on board the points the Senator made.

I thank the Senators for the support that they have given me on this. I appreciate it. In closing, I assure this House that supporting families with young children is a priority of this Government and we will continue to target reductions in child poverty and to support other vulnerable groups during these pressing economic times. I will continue to work with this House to ensure that we have a flexible and adaptive social protection system that is best placed to respond to the needs of our society. The views of Members are a valuable input in determining policy in this area and, as ever, I will take into account these views in formulating future actions on the part of Government.