Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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181. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No.193 of 17 February 2015, the reason a school (details supplied) in County Donegal has received a fixed rate allocation towards school lunches over the past number of years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11321/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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182. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No.193 of 17 February 2015, if extra funding will be allocated to a school (details supplied) in County Donegal to correspond with the increase of pupils at the school; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11322/15]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 181 and 182 together.

The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to some 1,600 schools and organisations which benefits over 207,000 children through two schemes. The first is the statutory urban school meals scheme, operated by local authorities and part-financed by the 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. Despite pressure on the social protection budget, the Government allocated an additional €2 million for the school meals programme in 2015, providing a total allocation of €39 million.

The additional €2 million allocated to the school meals programme will be used to increase payments to existing schools which are part of the Department of Education and Skill's initiative for disadvantaged schools 'Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools', (DEIS), with a focus on the provision of breakfast clubs. The Department is currently considering options regarding the allocation of the additional funding.

The school referred to by the Deputy, is a DEIS school, and has received over €239,725 in total funding under the school meals local projects scheme since 2005 and was allocated funding of €18,146 for a lunch club for the current academic year. The Department is reviewing the allocation for the current year and has been in contact with the school directly regarding this matter.