Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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539. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of an application by a school (details supplied) for the school meals scheme; when a decision is likely to be reached in respect of this application; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4331/22]

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.

A budget of €68.1 million has been provided for the scheme in 2022.

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, including 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.

Funding under the School Meals Programme is normally confined to the academic year but an exception was made in recognition of Covid-19. Funding under the school meals programme remained available to schools to allow them to provide food during school closures and over the holiday periods.

Furthermore, funding was made available to schools participating in the Department of Education’s School Based Education Programme, which focusses on pupils with complex special educational needs and those at risk of education disadvantage over the summer months.

The school referred to by the Deputy participated in the Department of Education’s School Based Education Programme last summer and received funding to cover the cost of food for the duration of that programme.

Previously, this school applied to join the school meals programme and was informed that no provision could be provided as it does not have designated DEIS status.

Budget 2022 has provided the Department of Education an allocation of €18million for 2022 and €32million for 2023 to extend the DEIS programme to further schools with the highest levels of disadvantage. This represents an increase of over 20% in funding for the DEIS programme and will enable an expansion in 2022 to additional schools.

This package follows an extensive body of work which has been under taken by the DEIS technical group in relation to the development of a model to identify the concentrated levels of disadvantage of schools. The refined DEIS ID model is an objective, statistics based process, based on school enrolment data and data available from Census 2016 under the HP Deprivation Index. It is important to note that there is no application process for the DEIS programme and all schools will be considered by the Department of Education under the refined DEIS model when it is applied.

In advance of the implementation of the refined DEIS identification model, I am advised that there will be further engagement by the Department of Education with relevant stakeholders. The purpose is to ensure that, as far as possible, the refined DEIS identification model can provide an objective and independent means of identifying schools serving high concentrations of pupils at risk of educational disadvantage and also to ensure there is a full understanding of the refined model and its potential application.I trust that this clarifies the position for the Deputy.