School Meals Programme
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
============================================================

Darren O'Rourke (SF), Meath East

I appreciate all of that complexity. We heard at the Oireachtas committee that it is sometimes at the request of parents or the children, in that the food is of a different standard or there is a lack of variety.
Two other important points were raised with us at the education committee which are relevant to the Minister. He mentioned one of those earlier, which is in the area of school holidays. Specifically, a point made by principals, Eoghan O’Byrne and Conor McCarthy, when they came in to us was around the continuation, that is, of the hot school meal for the school term but not outside of that. There was a separate point regarding the administrative cost of the scheme. Schools, and particularly principals, are looking for support on that. Is that something the Minister will consider?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26