Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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761. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the estimated cost of abolishing the parental levy on the school milk scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14770/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that pupils participating in the school milk scheme who attend DEIS classified schools are exempt from a parental contribution for the school milk scheme and receive school milk free of charge. A parental contribution is in place for those pupils attending non-DEIS classified schools.

Ireland receives a fixed annual funding allocation for the School Milk Scheme from the EU Commission of €900,000. My Department contributes supporting Exchequer funding in the region of €200,000 for the necessary accompanying measures and ancillary expenditure not covered under the EU School Scheme allocation. The parental contribution is offset against and bridges the cost of the milk charged by the national suppliers and the financial allocation made available to Ireland from the EU. This is deemed necessary in order to support the wider availability of the EU school milk scheme to those pupils from non-DEIS schools who choose to enroll, so enabling greater participation in the scheme.

The parental contribution for the school year 2021/2022 amounted to €149,364. The parental contribution, per child per week, does not exceed €1.20. The aim is to keep this rate as low as possible.

The parental contribution is not income received by the State, but is paid by the schools concerned directly to their school milk supplier. A previous evaluation of the School Milk Scheme has shown that the parental contribution is not a significant deterrent to the voluntary enrolment by a parent, of their child, in the daily distribution scheme in order to inform healthy eating habits of children at an early age.