Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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122. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if schools will be permitted to use funds from the social inclusion unit to supply families in poverty with food during the Christmas 2020 period; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42523/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The School Meals Programme is operated by the Department of Social Protection and provides funding towards provision of food services for disadvantaged school child through two schemes;

- The statutory Urban School Meals Scheme for primary schools is operated by Local Authorities and part-financed by the DSP.

- The non-statutory School Meals Local Projects Scheme (SMLPS) provides funding directly from the DSP to primary schools, secondary schools and local groups and voluntary organisations which operate their own school meals projects.

The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children who are unable, due to lack of good quality food, to take full advantage of the education provided to them. Research shows the value of the provision of adequate and nutritious meals for a child's health, learning, attention and educational achievement.  The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. The school meals programme does not in general operate during school holidays.

In light of the nationwide school closure due to Covid-19 precautionary measures, the Government announced on March 26th that the school meals programme would continue, thus schools made arrangements for continued provision of school meals during the school closure period.  

As an exceptional measure, since schools had been closed and given the prevailing circumstances at the time,  the Department of Social Protection subsequently permitted schools to maintain the service during the Easter and summer holidays in 2020 if they wished to do so, using the funding provided by that Department under the School Meals Programme. Schools have re-opened since the end of August and the school meals programme has been operating as normal in schools.

Any decision in relation to extending the provision over the Christmas school holiday period in 2020 is a matter for the Department of Social Protection.