Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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557. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of primary schools that provide school meals by county in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44745/20]

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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558. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of post-primary schools that provide school meals by county in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44746/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 557 and 558 together.

The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,557 schools and organisations benefitting 227,000 children.  The objective of the scheme 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.  The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement.

The programme is operated through the Urban School Meals Scheme and the School Meals Local Projects Scheme.  The Urban School Meals Scheme is a statutory scheme that is operated in conjunction with Local Authorities and is available to primary school children.  The department jointly funds the food costs on 50/50 basis with the Local Authorities who are responsible for the administration and operation of the scheme.  298 primary schools received funding through the Urban School Meals Scheme in 2020 and a breakdown by county is shown in Table 1 of the attached Tabular Statement. 

The School Meals Local Projects Scheme is an administrative scheme which is operated directly by the department and provides funding to primary and secondary schools, local groups, voluntary organisations and community-based not-for-profit preschools which operate their own school meals projects.

868 primary and 283 post-primary schools provide school meals through the School Meals (Local Projects) Scheme and a breakdown by county is shown in Table 2 of the attached Tabular Statement.

Table 1: Primary Schools that receive funding through the Urban School Meals Scheme

Table 2: Primary and Post-Primary Schools providing school meals through the School Meals (Local Projects) Scheme by county: