School Meals Programme
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Darren O'Rourke (SF), Meath East

I appreciate the Minister's comments on his own preference for multiple providers. It is important to expand upon that. I referenced Duhallow. The Minister is aware the education committee has spent a lot of time on this. We have previously discussed this ourselves during Oral Questions. I have talked about Duhallow and St. John's and St. Paul's in Drogheda. This is not a niche experiment. It is a proven, viable, replicable model. In Finland, 850,000 meals a day are served through a community-led model. In Copenhagen, almost 90% of school food is organic, and its food schools show positive impacts on well-being from dietary diversity. It is the same in Milan and in France. There is really good research from the Trinity Business School and Food Policy Ireland making clear that the community model of school food provision can be socially, economically, and environmentally beneficial and resilient and that it supports local economies. In his follow-up contribution will the Minister expand on that point in terms of whether there is an opportunity now to look at meals on wheels, the community-led sector and the not-for-profit sector, what is working well, and how we can maybe grow that sector or share of the market, for want of a better term?
I have a request for the Minister. I spoke to the principal at St. Paul's in Drogheda. There is an open invite to him to go to see their system operating. As I said, it is absolutely wonderful. It has been funded by the Department since the 1980s. It is incredible what the people are doing there, and they would love to welcome him to Drogheda.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-22