Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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293. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated average cost of providing hot school meals per child in primary school; the cost of providing dinner club per child in post primary schools; and to provide the cost of breakfast club, lunch and school club per child in other organisations, respectively, in 2023 -2024 and to date in 2024-2025, academic years, in tabular form. [28323/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The objective of the School Meals 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.

In Budget 2025, it was announced that the Hot School Meals Scheme will be extended to all remaining primary schools in 2025, meaning that approximately 3,700 schools and 682,000 children will be eligible for school meals in 2025.

As clarified with the Deputy's office, the tables below contain details of the actual number of children benefiting from each meal club under the School Meals Programme for years 2023/24 and 2024/25 as requested. Some children may have entitlement to avail of more than one meal club and this is reflected in the maximum number of children that benefited as detailed in the tables below.

Academic Year 2023/2024