Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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323. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will instruct her Department to immediately reverse the decision to refuse the hot meals scheme for a school (details supplied) which is a DEIS band 1 school operating in one of the most deprived areas in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5270/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The School Meals Programme provides funding towards the provision of food services to some 1,600 schools and organisations benefitting 260,000 children.  The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking 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 €94.4m.

The school referred to by the Deputy receives school meals funding through the local School Completion Programme and commenced providing hot school meals from September 2022 on the misunderstanding that they were in the hot school meals programme.  The School Completion Programme have now submitted an application on their behalf to commence providing hot school meals.  Officials from my Department are working currently with the school Principal and the School Completion Co-ordinator to finalise their application.

I trust this clarifies the matter.