Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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947. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of primary and post primary DEIS schools that were denied funding for breakfast club for the school year 2024-2025, in tabular form. [30245/25]

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.

The ethos of the Hot School Meals Programme is that every child should have access to at least one hot meal per day. The school may also apply for a breakfast club, snack club, lunch club, dinner club or after school school club if eligible. However the priority is for all primary schools to receive a hot school meal.

Currently, a school cannot receive a breakfast club and a snack club. They can only get one of them. They are both paid at the same rate. Seven schools were not allowed the breakfast club as they were in receipt of the snack club (table 1 below). Another nine schools are in receipt of the Hot School Meals but do not satisfy the qualifying criteria for the breakfast club as they are a new DEIS school since 2022 (table 2 below).

I have asked my officials to review this policy and I will engage further with the Deputy accordingly.

I trust this clarifies the matter.

Table 1