John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour)
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422. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the current budget allocation for the school meals programme; the average funding amount provided to each school in each category of need and the average amount to each student; her plans to review the system for allocating funds to the scheme due to the growing number of students in schools currently operating the scheme and the growing number of new schools availing of the scheme. [9648/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The school meals 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 this Department. The second is the school meals local projects scheme through which funding is provided directly to participating schools and local and voluntary community groups who run their own school meals projects.

The Government has provided €37 million for the programme in 2014 which will benefit over 205,000 children across some 1,600 schools and organisations, representing an average of €23,000 per school/organisation and €180 per child for the academic year.

In recent years priority for new applications for funding has been given to schools which are part of the Department of Education and Skills initiative for disadvantaged schools ”Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools”(DEIS). DEIS schools may apply for funding for all pupils, if they feel such a need exists. However there is no automatic entitlement to funding and all applications must be considered in light of the available budget for the scheme. Following the provision of an additional €2 million for the scheme as part of Budget 2013 the Department contacted over 170 schools requesting expressions of interest in participating in the scheme for the current school year. Applications to join the scheme were received from some 90 schools which have been included in the scheme.