Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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264. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide details of the funding that is going towards period poverty in schools; if she will provide a breakdown of that funding, in tabular form, as the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform has indicated that the funding of implementation measures for period poverty needs to be funded separately via each Department’s vote; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20101/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government includes the commitment to ‘provide a range of free, adequate, safe, and suitable period products in all educational publicly-funded settings (including schools, colleges and HEIs), to ensure that no students are disadvantaged in their education by period poverty.’

The Government has also taken the decision in 2021 to support the Private Members’ Bill, the Free Provision of Period Products Bill, 2021 (Bill 4) which seeks to make period products freely available to all those who need them. It has also been agreed that the recommendations of the 2021 Discussion Paper on Period Poverty in Ireland will be taken into account in the development of the Bill.

To co-ordinate all of the work here an implementation group, led by the Department of Health has been established. My Department is represented on the group and is engaging with it to determine how best these commitments will be taken forward in the context of schools and to ensure no students are disadvantaged in their education by period poverty as committed in the Programme for Government. No funding has been provided to schools to date.