Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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240. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of schools that currently do not have a school meals programme in place per county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9238/17]

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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242. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if all DEIS schools currently avail of the school meals programme; the number that do not; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9237/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 240 and 242 together.

The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to schools and organisations benefitting over 200,000 children at a total cost of some €47.7 million in 2017. The funding for the scheme was increased this year, as part of Budget 2017, by an additional €5.7 million (14% over the previous year’s allocation) which will benefit over 50,000 children. For the current academic year, 2016 / 2017, a total of some €44 million has been allocated to schools under the scheme.

There are currently a total of some 1,145 schools participating in the scheme, a breakdown of this information on a county basis is provided in the attached tabular statement. Statistics are not maintained by my Department on the number of schools who do not receive support under the school meals programme.

In recent years priority for new applications for funding has been given to schools which are part of the DEIS programme. From September 2016 additional funding is being provided to DEIS schools already participating in the scheme to provide breakfast and lunch to the majority of pupils. Those DEIS schools not participating in the scheme were recently invited to join the scheme of which 21 have joined for this academic year and 3 more have expressed an interest in joining. There are a total of 825 DEIS schools of which the vast majority, 770 or over 93%, are currently participating in the scheme. The Deputy should be aware that the Department is in the process of contacting some 70 schools not currently part of DEIS and deemed to require this support from next September following the recently launched DEIS Plan 2017. These schools are being invited to join the school meals scheme from September 2017.

Budget 2017 also provided for the extension of the scheme to breakfast clubs in non-DEIS schools from September 2017 which is the first time in many years that increased payments will be provided to schools outside of DEIS. Priority will be provided to those schools where there is most need.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Tabular Statement: Number of Schools benefitting from School Meals by County.