Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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871. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of families that receive child benefit payments; and the number of children these are in respect of. [31166/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Child benefit is a monthly payment and is paid in respect of all qualified children up to the age of 16, or to the age of 18 if they are in full-time education or have a disability. In May 2021, it was paid to 637,260 customers in respect of 1,212,099 children.

I hope this clarifies matters for the Deputy.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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872. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of making a one-off annual double payment of child benefit to all recipients in September 2021. [31167/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The cost of making a double payment of Child Benefit in September 2021 would be an additional €176 million. There is no provision in the 2021 Further Revised Estimate to make such a payment.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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873. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of increasing the school meals programme budget by 5%, 10%, 20% and 25%, respectively; and the estimated cost of extending the programme budget to include provision for breakfast in addition to lunch. [31168/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,506 schools and organisations benefitting 230,000 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 can be provided for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, hot meals and afterschool clubs, subject to submission of an application. It is based on a maximum rate per child per day, depending on the type of meal being provided e.g. €0.60 per child per day where a breakfast is being provided and €1.40 per child per day where a cold lunch is being provided.

In recent years entry to the School Meals Scheme has been confined to DEIS schools in addition to schools identified as having levels of concentrated disadvantage that would benefit from access to the School Meals Programme.

Prior to the introduction of DEIS in 2005, all schools and organisations that were part of one of a number of Department of Education and Skills’ initiatives for disadvantaged schools were eligible to participate in the programme, which included Breaking the Cycle, Giving Children an Even Break, the Disadvantaged Area Scheme, Home School Community Liaison and the School Completion Programme. These schools and organisations have continued to remain in the scheme since the introduction of DEIS in 2005 but their level of funding has been capped at the same rate year on year to allow for the concentration of the scheme on DEIS schools.

Based on the 2021 budgetary allocation of €65.1 million, the additional annual costs of expanding the school meals programme by 5%, 10%, 20% and 25% are €3.3 million, €6.5 million, €13 million and €16.3 million respectively.

The scheme is currently available to all 887 DEIS schools, of which 144 are not availing of the breakfast or snack and 199 are not availing of lunch. If all DEIS schools not currently availing of the breakfast and lunch options were to apply to be included the estimated additional cost would be €9.6m annually.

Changes to increase the funding of any scheme administered by my Department would have to be considered in a budgetary context.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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874. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of children availing of free hot school meals; the cost of same; and the cost per child and school of delivering same. [31169/21]

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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875. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of providing hot free school meals to all children currently availing of free school meals. [31170/21]

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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876. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of providing free hot school meals to all children attending DEIS schools. [31171/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 874 to 876, inclusive, together.

The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,506 schools and organisations benefitting 230,000 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 under the school meals (local projects) scheme can be provided for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, hot meals and afterschool clubs and is based on a maximum rate per child per day, depending on the type of meal being provided e.g. €1.40 per child per day where a cold lunch club is being provided, €1.90 per child per day where a dinner club is being provided and €2.90 per child per day where a Hot Meal club is being provided. Dinner clubs provide a hot meal, but are different from the Hot Meals clubs, in that they tend to be provided by schools with onsite cooking facilities whereas food for Hot Meals clubs is cooked offsite and delivered to the school.

As part of 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.

In Budget 2021, I announced that an additional €5.5m would be provided to extend the provision of hot school meals to an additional 35,000 primary school children, currently receiving the cold lunch option.

There are currently 20,648 students receiving a hot meal in 2020/2021, at a cost of €4.4m. The cost per child per day is €2.90. The cost per school is dependent upon the number of pupils availing of the hot meal option in each school.

It would cost some €71m to provide a hot meal to every student currently availing of the scheme in primary schools. To provide hot meals to students availing of the scheme in secondary schools would cost just under €33m.

The cost of providing a hot meal at €2.90 to all students in DEIS primary schools would be €56.6m.

Changes to the level of funding of any scheme administered by my Department would have to be considered in a budgetary context.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.