Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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265. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if discussions are expected with the Department of Social Protection regarding all schools that were awarded DEIS status in March 2022 that will not have access to the school meals programme for September 2022 due to budgetary constraints; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28553/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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From next September the DEIS programme will be extended to an additional 310 schools. These schools were identified as having the highest levels of educational disadvantage. This now means that in the 2022/23 academic year there will be 1,194 schools in the DEIS Programme. 240,000 students or nearly 1 in 4 students will be supported in the programme.

My Department will work with the schools that will benefit from the programme to support them to make the transition. Information sessions are underway for schools on the DEIS programme, to outline the supports available and to support them in planning for improvement.

The school meals programme, under the remit of the Minister for Social Protection, provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,506 schools and organisations benefitting 230,000 children. Priority access to the programme is one of the supports provided to schools currently in the DEIS programme. 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. Officials from my Department regularly engage with colleagues in the Department of Social Protection in relation to the school meals programme and related policy. 

Any provision to extend the programme to the schools newly added to the DEIS programme will be considered by the Department of Social Protection as part of the budgetary process.