David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 441: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the details of his planned expansion of the school meals scheme to utilise the underspend in 2004; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22064/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The school meals programme operated by my Department gives funding towards provision of food services for disadvantaged school children through two schemes. The first is the long-standing statutory urban school meals scheme, currently operated by 36 local authorities. The Department jointly funds the food costs with these local authorities, who also manage and fund the administration of the scheme. The second is the school meals local projects scheme, through which funding is provided by my Department to participating schools and voluntary community groups in both urban and rural areas for specific school meals projects. This has recently been expanded to include pre-schools that are community based and which operate on a not-for-profit basis.

In 2004, the provision for the school meals programme was €6.08 million in total, including €4.95 million for the school projects and €1.13 million towards the urban school meals scheme operated by the participating local authorities. The school meals scheme is demand led and demand from schools and local communities was fully met. Under the local projects scheme, some 41,300 children benefited in 451 schools, 124 secondary schools and 327 primary schools, at a cost of €3.56 million, which represented a substantial increase over 2003 when expenditure was €1.76 million.

The total provision available to my Department for this scheme for 2005 is €5.2 million. This allocation allows for more extensive take-up of the scheme by schools and parent or community groups. The scheme has significant social and educational benefits in assisting towards improved child nutrition and in encouraging regular school attendance. I encourage schools and groups to utilise the scheme from the start of the next school year in September. The Department of Education and Science is using its schools completion programme and Giving Children an Even Break initiative to encourage the introduction and extension of school meals projects. In addition, my Department has recently assigned an extra officer to pilot additional ways of encouraging schools and groups to participate in the scheme. I am confident that these initiatives will lead to increased use by schools of this very valuable programme.