School Meals Programme
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-15
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Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

I am very grateful to Deputy Ellis for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection.
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. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. In the last budget, the hot school meals programme was extended to all remaining primary schools. This means that approximately 3,700 schools and 682,000 children are eligible for school meals. There are 3,200 primary schools participating in the hot school meals programme for the current academic school year. A budget of €286 million has been provided for the scheme in 2026. There are a number of meals clubs available under the school meals programme. The breakfast club is but one of them and was aimed at DEIS schools pre 2022 to ensure that the most disadvantaged children were able to have a breakfast meal before school. To date, 778 schools are receiving the breakfast club. This means that 149,401 children benefit from this club, at an annual cost of €19.4 million.
An evaluation of the schools meal programme was conducted in 2023. The report highlighted the effectiveness of the programme, including improved academic results. Studies show that school meals improve academic performance by increasing the time children spend in school and so provide support for families. The programme saves money and time on food preparation. Under the programme for Government, there is a commitment to continue to expand and improve the free hot school meals programme and ensure that suppliers adhere to robust guidelines on the nutritional value of meals, the dietary requirements of students, the reduction of food waste and the use of recycled packaging.
As the rate of payment for a breakfast club and snack club funding are the same, some schools operationally split the snack club funding allocated between breakfast and snack. This does not alter their total allocation. St. Malachy's Mixed National School has been in the school meals programme since 2016 and continues to receive payment for a snack club and hot school meals for 131 pupils. The total funding allocation for this school year is €93,141. When the hot school meals programme was being rolled out to original DEIS schools, they were entitled to retain meal club funding for their snack clubs. St. Malachy's Mixed National School is part of a school completion programme funded by the Department of Education and Youth, with operational responsibility managed by Tusla's education support service and a local management committee. The committee is responsible for the oversight of the project delivery at a local level, including the use of project resources, employment of staff and accountability of public funds. The Department of Social Protection has provided the funding request from St. Malachy's Mixed National School and the local management committee of the school completion programme is considering how best to utilise the funding. If there is anything that we can do to be supportive of the Deputy's efforts and to make sure that this is a school-led initiative, the Minister is more than happy to meet him, perhaps for a deputation meeting, should that be required.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-15