Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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640. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of providing school meals to every primary school by county in tabular form. [54349/22]

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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654. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the range of financial supports and funding streams available to schools to provide for meals and or food for students; if her Department is prepared to provide new and additional supports to schools in this regard in the context of the cost-of-living crisis; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54746/22]

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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655. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the funding streams and supports her Department makes available to schools across the country to provide food for students; if any new schemes are being developed to meet rising needs in the context of the cost-of-living challenges; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54747/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 640, 654 and 655 together.

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. This represents a 49% funding increase in the period since 2020.

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.

Entry to the School Meals Scheme has been confined to DEIS schools in addition to schools identified by the Department of Education as having levels of concentrated disadvantage that would benefit from access to the School Meals Programme.

Participation in the scheme is entirely voluntary. Schools and organisations must reapply for funding in advance of each school year and are required to submit detailed records at the end of the school year. Applications are accepted from individual schools and organisations as well as organisations such as School Completion Programmes who apply for multiple schools.

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 access to the hot school meal option would be extended to the 282 newly designated DEIS primary schools and to the cold lunch option to the 38 newly designated DEIS secondary schools from September benefitting some 60,000 children.

The estimated cost of providing a cold meal and a hot school meal free of charge every school day to every primary school student is contained in the attached tabular statement. Funding is provided for the cold lunch option at €1.40 and the hot school meal at €2.90 per child, per day.

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 commissioned the evaluation of the school meals programme to review all elements of the programme including the funding rates currently being provided for the various meal options. The final report is due to be completed by the end of the year and will help to inform future decisions around this important programme.

I trust this clarifies the matter.

Tabular Statement

The estimated cost of providing a cold meal and a hot school meal to primary schools by county:

*Department of Education enrolment figures for the 2021/2022 school year.