Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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709. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the schools who operated school meals scheme across County Louth for the academic school year 2024-2025; and the number of children in each school who received meals through the scheme, in tabular form. [63042/25]

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.

Following the Budget 2025 announcement all primary schools are now eligible for the Hot School Meals Scheme, meaning that approximately 3,700 schools and organisations and 682,000 children are now be eligible for the School Meals Programme.

There was a total of 64 schools in County Louth in receipt of the School Meals Programme in the 2024/25 academic school year. The table below provides a breakdown of the number of children in each school in receipt of the respective meal club under the programme.

I trust this clarifies the matter.

Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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711. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if his Department intends to contact schools that do not apply for the extended school meals scheme in the current academic school year to determine the reasons they have not applied. [63044/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The School Meals Programme is not mandatory for schools. The decision to apply lies with the school principal and board of management. There were some 300 schools who had not expressed an interest to join the programme at the end of the 2024/2025 academic year. My officials have engaged with these schools to ascertain the reasons why. The main reason given was due to a lack of demand from parents for the programme.

As this is the first academic year that all primary schools will be eligible for the Hot School Meals Programme, and applications continue to currently be received, a full analysis will be conducted in Q1 2026.

I trust this clarifies the matter.