Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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213. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the first-year and full-year cost of extending the school meals programme to all primary schools. [33346/15]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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214. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the first-year and full-year cost of extending the school meals programme to all secondary schools. [33347/15]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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215. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the first-year and full-year cost of expanding the school meals programme by 15%, and of extending the expanded programme to include an additional breakfast meal. [33348/15]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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216. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the first-year and full-year cost of increasing the current funding for the school meals programme to local groups and voluntary organisations which operate their own school meals projects by 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. [33349/15]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 213 to 216, inclusive, together.

The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to some 1,700 schools and organisations which benefits over 217,500 children. Despite pressure on the social protection budget, the Government allocated an additional €2 million for the programme in 2015, providing a total allocation of €39 million.

The programme is in place to provide support to disadvantaged children and priority is given to schools which are part of the Department of Education and Skills’ initiative for disadvantaged schools, ‘Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools’ (DEIS). The additional funding provided in 2015 is being used to increase payments to existing DEIS schools with a particular focus on the provision of funding for breakfast clubs which provide very positive outcomes for vulnerable children in terms of their school attendance, punctuality and energy levels. The Department is at present processing applications for the current school year.

The cost of extending the scheme to additional schools or food clubs can only be quantified where more specific information is available such as the number of disadvantaged pupils participating. The Department is not in a position to provide a breakdown of the cost of food clubs to local groups and voluntary organisations which operate their own school meals projects. Details of the various food clubs available under the scheme and the maximum daily rate per pupil are provided in the attached tabular statement.

Based on the 2015 budgetary allocation of €39 million, the additional annual cost of expanding the school meals programme by 15% is €5.85 million, at a cost of approximately €2 million in the first year covering the school term from September to December. Any changes to social welfare schemes can only be considered in a budgetary context.

School Meals Food Clubs