Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 411: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the way a scheme (details supplied) is operated; the number of schools on a county basis which currently benefit form it; the annual cost of the scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35769/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The School Meals Programme gives funding towards the provision of food services for disadvantaged school children through two schemes. The first is the long-standing statutory urban school meals scheme, operated by local authorities and part-financed by the Department of Social & Family Affairs. The second is the School Meals Local Projects scheme through which funding is provided directly by this Department to participating schools and local and voluntary community groups who are running their own school meals projects.

The School Meals Programme has expanded significantly in recent years. Expenditure on the urban and local projects school meals schemes increased from €13.6m in 2006 to €28.2m in 2007, and is expected to be in the region of €32m in 2008. In 2006, 1,389 schools and 125,000 pupils benefited from the programme and this increased to over 189,000 pupils from over 1,900 schools in 2007.

Funding under the School Meals Local Projects scheme is available for a variety of school meals projects, including breakfast clubs, snack clubs, lunch clubs, dinner clubs and homework clubs. The decision to operate a school meals projects, and responsibility for the actual operation of the project, rests entirely with the school or organisation concerned. Funding under the scheme is to assist participating schools/organisations with their food costs only.

Priority for funding under the School Meals Local Projects scheme is given to schools which are part of the Department of Education & Science's initiative for disadvantage schools, 'Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools' (DEIS). The focus of the School Meals scheme will remain on disadvantaged children and the inclusion of additional DEIS schools in the scheme will continue to be the Department's main priority.

The following table gives a breakdown by county of the numbers of schools/preschools/local groups which have benefited under the School Meals Local Projects scheme. These figures include a variety of different types of school food projects, including schools who receive funding directly from the Department for either their full school population or for targeted pupils and also school food projects funded by the Department and operated by local and voluntary organisations for pupils from a number of local schools. Table: County breakdown of the number of schools which have benefited under the School Meals Local Projects Scheme to date.