Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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98. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the next steps a school (details supplied) should take to access the hot school meals scheme, once it has agreed contractors and suppliers. [6746/26]

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.

Once schools have completed their procurement to select a School Meals supplier they need to set up a separate bank account for School Meals funding. Once that is completed they then need to complete the application form to apply for the Hot School Meals funding. All schools were communicated to individually to advise them of what steps they needed to take.

As this school is joining the programme for the first time, setting up the separate bank account is only required once. Schools generally conduct procurement every three year for a School Meals supplier but apply annually for funding. All information on how to apply and the relevant application form is available on the School Meals website, Gov.ie see link: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-social-protection/services/school-meals-scheme/#apply.

If the school has any query on the application form they can contact the School Meals Section on 071-9138625 or email school.meals@welfare.ie

I trust this clarifies the matter.