Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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624. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of the hot school meals initiative; when a review of the pilot scheme can be expected; and if the scheme will be extended in the future. [13543/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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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 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. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement.

Funding is based on a rate of payment per meal, per child, per day. Until 2019, a hot meal was only provided through a dinner club which was primarily offered in schools with onsite cooking facilities.

In Budget 2019, funding was provided for a pilot scheme from September 2019, providing hot school meals in primary schools at a cost of €1m for 2019 and €2.5m in 2020. The pilot involved 37 schools benefitting 6,744 students for the 2019/2020 academic year and was aimed primarily at schools with no onsite cooking facilities.

Budget 2020 provided an additional €4 million in funding to extend the hot meals for children currently receiving the cold lunch option, which would allow my department to extend the hot meals to an additional 35,000 children. A decision was made to delay the extension of the hot meals to January 2021 because of the closure of schools due to the Covid-19 Pandemic from 13 March 2020.

In Budget 2021, I have provided an additional €5.5m for this extension from January 2021 to 35,000 primary school children currently receiving the cold lunch option.

Officials from my Department issued invitations for expressions of interest to some 700 primary schools in November 2020. A total of 282 expressions of interest were received. Due to the latest school closures, as a result of the Level 5 restrictions, the selection process has been deferred until schools re-open later this month.

The Evaluation of the Hot Meals Pilot which was completed in July 2020 found that all stakeholders indicated that the pilot project had a positive impact on children’s diet, behaviour, attentiveness and psychological wellbeing. I intend to publish the evaluation report shortly.

I trust that this clarifies the position for the Deputy.