Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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256. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if funding for school meals has been increased in line with inflation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52572/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The School Meals Programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to some 1,700 schools and organisations and benefitting 260,000 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.

Budget 2022 provided €68.1 million for the programme with an additional €9m provided to allow access to all new DEIS schools from September 2022.  Additional funding for the programme has been provided for 2023 bringing the total to €91.6m.

Funding under the school meals programme can be provided for breakfast, snack, cold lunch, dinner, hot school meals and afterschool clubs and is based on a maximum rate per child per day, depending on the type of meal being provided.  Full details of the rates are provided in the attached tabular statement.

In March 2022, the Minister for Education announced an extension of the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in School to an additional 322 schools from September 2022.  In July, I announced that the provision of the hot school meal option will be extended to all new DEIS primary schools and the cold lunch option to all new DEIS secondary schools benefitting some 60,000 children at an additional cost of €9m in 2022. 

The current rates have not changed but I am committed to continuing to expand the school meals programme and building further on the significant extension of the programme in recent years. In this regard, I have commissioned an evaluation of the school meals programme, which is currently underway.  As part of this review, all elements of the programme, including rates, will be considered.

I trust this clarifies the matter.

Tabular Statement

Table 1: Rates of payment for the School Meals Programme