This morning, we will engage with the Department of Social Protection. The agenda for the meeting is to discuss the Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2025, chapter 26 - procurement of hot school meals.

On behalf of the committee, I welcome officials from the Department of Social Protection: Mr. John McKeon, Secretary General; Ms Paula Lyons, assistant secretary; and Mr. Rónán Hession, assistant secretary. We are joined by an official from the Department of Education and Youth, who is attending in a representative capacity - Ms Siobhán Gaffey, principal officer - and by officials from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, including Mr. Seamus McCarthy, Comptroller and Auditor General, who is a permanent witness to the committee, and Ms Eileen Glynn, audit manager. They are all welcome.

Before we begin, I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. This means that they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure it is not abused. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of a person or entity.

I call the Comptroller and Auditor General to deliver his opening statement.

A scheme for the provision of meals to certain schoolchildren commenced in 2003 on a targeted basis. The scheme has expanded in phases since 2021. In September 2025, availability of funding for hot school meals was extended to all primary schools.

The school meals scheme is funded through Vote 37 - Social Protection. Reflecting the expansion of the scheme, funding issued by the Department of Social Protection has increased significantly in recent years. In 2025, €230 million was paid out from Vote 37. The funding allocation for 2026 was €286 million.

Schools apply individually to the Department of Social Protection for funding under the scheme and declare the number of pupils catered for as part of the application. The report recommended that the Department of Social Protection make better use of available information, including school enrolment data received from the Department of education, to verify the reasonableness of claims and strengthen financial management controls. The Department committed to amending the funding application process accordingly from the 2026–27 academic year.

The Department prefunds schools for the hot school meals programme based on an assumption that the full number of pupils stated on the application form will avail of a hot school meal every day over the school term. As a result, if pupils opt out of the scheme or are absent and meals are cancelled in a timely way, schools will have surplus funding on hand at the end of the school year. Although the Department reduces the next year’s allocation to take account of balances held, surpluses continue to arise and are increasing each year. Aggregate surpluses at the end of the 2025–26 academic year amounted to almost €34 million, or 15% of the total funding issued for the 2024–25 academic year.

The school meals scheme operates under a devolved procurement model whereby each individual school is responsible for procuring its own school meals supplier. This potentially creates an opportunity for local catering businesses. However, in practice, a small number of large suppliers of school meals have emerged. The examination found that €176 million, or 69% of scheme funding issued for the 2025–26 academic year, was linked to schools using the five largest school meal providers.

Rapid expansion of the scheme has led to individual schools managing complex procurement processes and contracts of significant value, including many over the threshold requiring competitive online tendering. The examination found that there was little evidence that procurement processes had been completed as required for schools that joined the scheme prior to April 2025. However, improvements to the procurement process, including the introduction by the schools procurement unit, SPU, of standardised procurement documentation in August 2025, have increased the level of compliance with public procurement requirements.

Ensuring value for public money spent on the school meal scheme depends on achieving optimum economy. This requires schools to ensure that the right quantity and quality of meals are delivered at the agreed rate of €3.20 per meal per day. Oversupply and meals that are rejected or uneaten by pupils result in waste and loss in value to the taxpayer. Responsibility for quality management falls to each individual school and its supplier while management of the quantity of meals ordered effectively lies with the parents or guardians of the pupils.

The standardised hot school meals contract, introduced in September 2025, provides for suppliers to report to schools on key performance indicators, the results of quality feedback reviews, and measures taken to prevent food waste. Such information may be useful to the Department to gather feedback on how the scheme is operating and to inform future planning decisions. The Department has committed to reviewing the service management reports provided to schools as part of its school meals inspection programme during the 2026-27 academic year. The Department has also taken further useful steps to strengthen its oversight of the school meals programme, including publication of a nutritional review of school meals and of the results of an independent survey of schools, parents and pupils.

I ask the Secretary General to deliver his opening statement on behalf of the Department of Social Protection.

I thank the committee for inviting me to discuss chapter 26 of the report on the accounts of the public services concerning the procurement of hot school meals.

I am joined by my colleagues Ms Lyons and Mr. Hession. Mr. Hession previously held responsibility for the school meals programme and Ms Lyons currently holds that responsibility. With the Chair's permission, I may rely on their assistance in responding to detailed operational questions raised by members. I arranged for a copy of this statement and supporting briefing material to be provided to the committee in advance of today's meeting. I hope members found this material helpful.

Although usually received as a relatively recent initiative, the genesis of the school meals programme can be traced back to the Education (Provision of School Meals) Act 1914. Under this Act, designated schools, mainly in poorer areas, were funded to receive what were essentially school snacks. Some of us can recall the quarter pint bottle of milk, bread with jam or corned beef on four days of the week, and the treat of a bun on Thursday or Friday.

Originally administered by local authorities, responsibility for funding the programme moved to the Department of Social Welfare on its formation in 1947, and continued thereafter with some minor modifications until the 2001-03 period when the current programme was established. This programme now includes what are known as breakfast or snack clubs, dinner clubs in a small number of schools with their own kitchen and catering facilities, and after-school clubs, as well as the hot meal option, which is the subject of the chapter under review. Following a trial, the programme is being further expanded to fund a holiday meals service from 2027.

The hot meals option was introduced first as a proof of concept in Our Lady of Lourdes National School in Inchicore and then as pilot in 37 DEIS schools from September 2019. This was at a time when, on the one hand, there was increasing concern regarding child food poverty and, on the other, an increasing recognition of the positive effects of providing children with a hot meal during the school day. Given that the State’s school infrastructure did not include the type of catering and dining facilities needed to prepare food on site, a key objective of the proof of concept and pilot was to establish whether a remote preparation and delivery option would work in Ireland as it did in some other countries. Once the feasibility of this approach was established, the scheme expanded relatively quickly to the point where all primary schools today are eligible to seek funding and approximately 3 million hot meals a week are provided to some 500,000 children. Commensurately, expenditure on the programme increased to approximately €230 million in 2025. The funding allocation for 2026 is €286 million.

While the Department is responsible for funding and oversight of the scheme, responsibility for procurement of suppliers and contract management is devolved to schools. This devolved model not only reflects the legal position of schools as independent contracting authorities but also continues the long-standing approach that existed and continues to exist with respect to the cold lunches, breakfast and snack options. Importantly, it also provides flexibility to accommodate local circumstances and suppliers, as reflected in the fact that there are approximately 300 suppliers of school meals operating around the country.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General recognises the benefits of this approach but also draws attention to some challenges. While devolved procurement allows schools to select suppliers that best meet their local needs, it can present challenges in ensuring economy, consistency and regularity in procurement. The Department acknowledges these challenges, particularly given the much-increased scale of provision and expenditure. However, we are also mindful that there is already some evidence of a concentration in supply and that a move to a more centralised model, while enabling greater control, is also likely to introduce inflexibility and result in even greater levels of supplier concentration. Accordingly, the development of procurement supports for schools and engagement with key stakeholders was a key focus of an interdepartmental working group established under the chairmanship of the Department in 2024. The group includes the Departments of Education and Youth, Health, and Children, Disability and Equality, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. A key outcome from the group, led by the SPU of the Department of Education and Youth, was to strengthen and standardise the devolved processes, with new procurement documentation and template contracts made available to schools from August 2025.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General highlights some areas where the Department's financial management arrangements can be strengthened, particularly regarding enrolment verification, funding surpluses and analysis of expenditure data. Accordingly, recommendation 1.1 in the chapter calls for a review of financial management controls and more effective use of Department of education enrolment data. While the Department is confident that the process heretofore of accepting school declarations with respect to enrolment, countersigned by the principal and a member of the board of management, and the offsetting of any surplus funding against subsequent year requirements, together with the examination of annual financial returns and other controls, means that the risk to Exchequer funds is very small, it accepts the observations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General and has already moved to implement his recommendations. For example, additional enrolment validation measures have been introduced for funding applications from schools to examine variances between application figures and official enrolment data. The Department has also committed to undertaking a detailed analysis of surplus funding levels. In addition, schools are now required to provide expenditure information by meal type to enable improved monitoring and the investigation of deficits or irregularities where they arise.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General notes that economy in the provision of the hot school meals programme would be reflected in levels of food quality and waste or unused meals.

The chapter states that the Department has limited or no information with respect to the quantity or quality of food delivered, that there is no central oversight or formal analysis of such issues carried out by the Department, and that key performance indicators now required as part of the standard contract documentation should be obtained and analysed by the Department. While noting these observations, the Department would also stress that food quality and waste issues have been assessed and analysed on a number of occasions, starting with a survey conducted by Behaviour and Attitudes in 2020, a detailed review of the hot school meals scheme in 2023 by RSM, and during the past year, as part of a second survey by Ipsos B and A, a specially commissioned review of nutrition in hot school meals by a CORU-registered dietician. The Department has also taken into account international studies on school meal programmes and is now conducting over 500 school visits per annum to check compliance with processing standards. All of these studies have fed into the approach for managing the programme and have already led to changes in nutrition standards and procurement, and will continue to do so.

By way of information, the nutrition review found overall that there was a wide variety of meals offered under the scheme with good availability of nutritious and well-balanced options. It found that 82% of meals analysed did not contain foods considered to be high in fat, salt or sugar, and that feedback provided by principals and teachers during school visits was largely positive. Similarly, the Ipsos B and A survey showed that 81% of parents and guardians reported that their child avails of the scheme, with the majority of them viewing the many options as healthy or very healthy. Some 85% of children who responded reported they liked the meal or that it was satisfactory, and 76% of children stated that they eat all, or most or some, of their meal.

With respect to waste, the nutrition review found that the average proportion of uneaten meals was 18.9% across all classes, with less waste seen in younger age groups. Adjusted for student absences, the proportion of uneaten meals fell to 11.1%. This data compares with international studies showing waste levels in other school meal programmes of in excess of 20% and up to 40%. It is notable that the B and A survey found that 48% of parents reported that their child brought home uneaten food prior to the introduction of the school meals programme.

While these results can be considered as relatively positive, it is acknowledged there are a number of improvements that can be made. For example, the review found that high fat, salt and sugar foods are chosen over healthier options when available on the menu, while the survey found that parents would like to see a cold lunch option as well as a hot meal option and continue to have concerns regarding ultra-processed food and the perceived low availability of fruit and vegetables. Reflecting these concerns, a number of recommendations are made as part of the review and these are actioned by the Department as set out in the briefing materials circulated last week. The completion of these reviews and the programme of implementing the recommendations largely addresses recommendation 1.2 of the chapter. In addition, the Department is committed to, and will ensure as part of its inspection programme for 2026-27, that the KPIs and service performance reports now required as part of the revised procurement and contracts process are provided and made available to the Department.

In the briefing material I provided last week, I included a link to a UN World Food Programme report on school meal provision. That report, among other things, highlighted the personal, social and economic benefits of school meal programmes showing, for example, that they added the equivalent of six months of schooling and improved school attendance by an average of 9%, making a significant difference to children's welfare, particularly girls. The economic multiplier of school meals programmes was estimated at more than 3:1, with about 1,300 jobs created in the food supply chain for each 100,000 children provided with a school meal. We cannot be sure that these precise figures map to Ireland, but we do know that the provision of a meal at school is, for some children, the only meal they will get that day. We do know that nourishment, the basic provision of calories, is essential to enable the child to concentrate, to participate and to grow.

Our school meals programme is not perfect but it has some strengths. It is available to be used in all schools for all children, so that the child who needs the meal can get it without any sense of stigma or being singled out. It operates at a relatively modest cost given its scale and through a devolved model, which means that local suppliers at least have a chance to be involved in the supply so that expenditure will benefit the local community. Having said that, we also know it could be better. Acknowledging that it is not perfect, we welcome the scrutiny of the C and AG and this committee. This scrutiny will help to identify ways that the programme can be improved both for the children, the families and the schools that it serves, and for the taxpayers who provide the funds.

I would like to acknowledge the work of all the people who deliver and support the programme, the staff of my own and other Departments and agencies, the suppliers from the food industry, but most importantly of all, the school communities who operate the scheme on a day-to-day basis. Their efforts have enabled a successful expansion of the scheme that is making a meaningful difference in the daily lives of children across the country. We are happy to take any questions that members may have.

I thank Mr. McKeon. I ask all to note that we will suspend the meeting at 12.30 p.m. or thereabouts for a 15-minute break and will then resume shortly afterwards. The lead speaker today is Deputy Dolan, who has 15 minutes. All other members have ten minutes. On conclusion of that, and if time permits, we will open it up to a short round of supplementary questions.

I thank our representatives from the Department of Social Protection and the Department of education for being with us today to discuss this topic. We are all going to spend the next few hours talking about everything that is wrong with the hot school meals programme, but before we delve into that it is really important we remember and are cognisant of the fact that there are children out there who, only for this scheme, would not receive a hot meal. Something we as a collective should be incredibly proud of is that our country would make sure of this for every child who does not have the benefit of perhaps a secure family life, or for whatever reason does not get a hot meal. We just have to keep that to the forefront of our conversation today. This scheme has been rolled out at immense speed. When you do something with immense speed you are inevitably going to make mistakes and get things wrong. The most productive thing we can do today is figure out how we can make sure this gets better going forward and we are not having this conversation in a year's time. Instead, we are able to have a conversation where we can say, "Those issues got ironed out and that scheme is serving an immense purpose". Parents I speak to in Galway East tell me about the immense cost-saving they have had in not having to prepare meals for their children for school. That is a cost-saving for families, but it is also a time-saving for them in not having to prepare the lunchbox in the morning. These are the real impacts of it. It also treats every child equally in that they all get access to the same food and the same meals.

I have a few queries. I am going to go down through them. As quickly as the witnesses can answer them I appreciate it, because the time goes quickly. The first thing I want to talk about, which is something I talk about a lot, is procurement. This is an interesting one because a lot of pressure is being put on principals who are, let us call a spade a spade, not procurement experts. I am not a procurement expert. I would not even know where to start if you were deciding to go out and tender for what could be a very large contract for a school. The C and AG's report highlights the enormous responsibility that is being placed on individual school principals. I listened with intent to Mr. McKeon. I understand that they are, in their own right, contracting authorities. They do have to have some responsibility for their own management of the contracts, but we are asking principals to negotiate contracts, evaluate suppliers, comply with procurement law, monitor food quality, manage cancellations and reconcile invoices. That is a huge administrative burden on principals who are educators. They are not trained to be procurement experts. Has the Department quantified the number of hours principals are spending administering this programme?

A direct answer to the question is we have not. If we go back to the RSM study in 2023, principals were asked about the devolved versus the centralised procurement model and they were very clear they did not want it centralised. They were very clear that it gave them the ability to make local arrangements with local suppliers and some of the national suppliers as well. That suited their school. They said that was a key success factor.

I agree with not centralising the procurement on it because what we are actually seeing is that 69% of the funds that are allocated to this, approximately €170 million, are going to the top five suppliers. Whether it was an intention to centralise it or not, it has essentially been centralised because those people, those large suppliers, are gobbling up the whole market. I want to get to the crux of this. There is no centralised procurement and that is fine. Where is the support, say, for the principals to make sure they are above board and are not exposing themselves unnecessarily?

That is the second point I was going to make, Deputy. We have worked very closely, and my colleagues in the Department of education can probably cover this in more detail, with the schools procurement unit in the Department of education, particularly over the last two years, to develop standard procurement templates, tenders and contracts.

We provided a lot of support to schools and did training webinars with school principals to give them all the support they need so they are not writing their own tenders, are not developing their marking schemes to assess tenders and are not writing their own contracts. All of that is provided to them. Colleagues in the Department of education can explain it in much more detail than I can. We set up an interdepartmental working group to look at this and to support the devolved model, which is what the schools wanted. We said that we had to provide supports and the best way to do that was to provide centralised forms, documents and templates that will support schools. We take a lot of the burden off them. Ms Gaffey may wish to comment further.

I agree with everything Mr. McKeon said. He covered it well. When we talk about templates, these templates are specifically done for the school meals programme. They are not generic templates that you can use for any procurement. The priority of the interdepartmental working group was to protect schools from a health and safety perspective and also to ensure that they were procurement compliant. To the Deputy's point, they are not procurement experts. While I know the documentation is long, everything is in there for the schools with only the table with the details specific to the-----

If a school principal is struggling with it, who does he or she go to? Does he or she go to the Department of education or the Department of Social Protection?

Within the Department of education, the schools procurement unit sits in the joint managerial body, JMB, and provides procurement support to schools,

This is important. The Department of education is providing the procurement advice to the schools on how to spend the Department of Social Protection's money.

The advice we are providing is in relation to procurement.

Of course, and I know the Department has a job to do to make sure the schools are not exposed and are doing a good job, but think about that for a second because I had not thought about it. The Department of education is providing the advice on how to spend the Department of Social Protection's money. It is all the one pot but, at the same time, that could be a risk for the Department of Social Protection as well and the Department of education might need to get more clarity on whether that is appropriate.

This is all run through the auspices of an interdepartmental working group that is chaired by the Department. We are very satisfied with the competence and capability of the schools procurement unit in the Department of education. In fact, that unit deals with procurement across a number of funding streams, not just Department of Education streams, because schools have multiple funding schemes. Responsibility for overseeing, auditing and managing the procurement practices of schools is in the Department of education. That is probably appropriate. It would be wrong if the Departments of health or children, youth and disability all had procurement rules for schools.

I appreciate that clarity. The examination estimates that €176 million or 69% of the scheme funding for 2025-26 was associated with just five suppliers. The two largest suppliers account for approximately 41%. I will be honest. That concentration concerns me. I think this should be an opportunity for that money to get spent in the local economy and ultimately have a spin-off effect into local economies and be a wraparound economy around schools. It is a good opportunity and it is a great intervention by the State. Why has it emerged that two companies account for 41% of the market?

In any industry, you will get some concentration. That is the nature of business. It is the nature of competitive practices. I can argue it both ways - that concentration is a good thing or a bad thing. On balance, I prefer to see less concentration but I would point out that there are over 300 suppliers. The two standard economic measures of concentration in industry are the C4 measure, which is the market share of the top four-----

Is it not-----

-----and the Herfindahl index. Both of those would position it as being moderately concentrated so-----

Is it not a set amount per meal that gets paid?

It is, yes.

Obviously, they must be very good at the procurement process or something but how has it emerged that two suppliers gobble up so much the market, if they are offering the same price as a more local supplier?

The Deputy is asking me to look into the business practices of other suppliers. What we would say and see is that they have invested a great deal of money in their distribution chains, their staffing and their production facilities. When somebody goes to tender and are asking a supplier, this is one of the issues. We have to get a balance here. I know the Comptroller and Auditor General has made some recommendations but the more you impose procurement rules and constraints on something, the more likely it is well-resourced suppliers will be able to meet those compared to smaller suppliers. We have to be careful. We are taking on board recommendations and following them but I think it is something we need to keep under review. We do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and create a situation through imposing more restrictive procurement practices that ultimately leads to better-resourced firms-----

I understand where Mr. McKeon is coming from. I hope that it becomes more of a spin-off for local businesses across the country. I accept that Mr. McKeon has said there are 300 suppliers. I want to move on to the next point because I am conscious of the time.

The contract requires suppliers to provide healthy, nutritionally balanced meals, preferably freshly prepared from raw ingredients, but the Comptroller and Auditor General found that the Department does not have comprehensive information on portion sizes and that suppliers generally provided the same portion size. I know this colloquially from visiting schools. It is the same portion size for junior infants as it is for sixth class. A sixth class child is going to be twice the size of a junior infant and will have different nutritional requirements. How does that make sense?

We do not believe that it makes sense either. We have always said that there should be different portion sizes and that should be one of the factors that is taken into account when the school is procuring the meals. We have taken that feedback on board along with feedback from our own research and we are in the process of putting together a standardised menu - that is the first thing - which will operate from next year on three-week cycle.

Did that come off the back of the nutritional review?

It did. We are also writing to the suppliers and the schools in the next couple of days reminding them of their obligations to make sure they can provide different portion sizes. The schools should look for it first and when it is looked for, the suppliers should supply it. That will be a more rigorous part of our inspection regime next year. We will look for confirmation of that.

We have identified that 69% of the market accounts for the two or five largest suppliers. Are there any independent checks and balances into the quality and sourcing of the food that goes into these meals?

They are food service companies that are subject to the same rules and regulations that every food service provider in the State is. We have the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, regulations, the Department of agriculture regulations and the Department of Health regulations. They have to comply with all of those.

Has the Department received any reports from the FSAI regarding issues with any suppliers or have any suppliers had to cease operations because of food safety concerns?

There have been one or two cases. One was reported in the newspapers this week, which the Deputy will be familiar with. They are of concern to us. We do contact the supplier. That supplier has closed the hub where there was an issue and moved to a different hub. It is not unexpected in this situation when you take in the other meal options. We are doing 3.5 million meals a week. It will happen at some point that some of that food will be contaminated. Like any food service operator, they are subject to inspections by the FSAI. As the Deputy knows, even some of the highest-class restaurants in Dublin have been found to be-----

I know where Mr. McKeon is coming from but it is important to say that parents place their trust in the schools that they are going to mind their children and that the schools have done their due diligence. Again, I come back to the pressure that is on a principal. There is pressure on them that they have done their due diligence and that the supplier they have chosen to go with in good faith is going to provide quality nutritious meals. I have visited schools and have seen great examples and heard great feedback about some of the schools and then I have seen really bad examples. I have seen these little pasta dishes that were horrible and then the principal showed me the amount of waste they had accumulated from children not eating it. The parents ended up giving them lunch as well and many of the children were not eating the meals. That does happen as well.

There are examples like that but when you say that, it is important that we do not damn the good because it is not perfect.

One hundred percent.

If we look at the feedback on the survey in the nutrition report, we are looking at 80% plus of meals meeting standards, 80% plus of parents and teachers saying that the food is healthy, nutritious-----

How is the Department going to get that up to over 90%?

This is something we are talking to the schools about. This is a matter for procurement officers in schools - the principals - to enforce the standards with and give feedback to their suppliers. Most of the schools-----

I have 30 seconds so I must get one last point in because the Cathaoirleach will step in.

I will talk about the inspections.

I have to get one last point in.

We do 500 inspections per year as well.

I would be remiss of me not to mention Moyglass National School in County Galway. For several years, the school successfully provided the hot meals. It is a small, rural DEIS school. The school heated the meals itself. The arrangement worked well. However, last year, while the school was changing its catering provider, the new procurement and delivery requirements were introduced. Under those requirements, providers are expected to heat the meals on site and collect the waste daily. As Moyglass was between contracts when the rules changed, it lost access to its hot meals provider. Nearby schools, just a few kilometres away, have continued receiving meals because they had existing contracts in place before the changes. The consequence is that the children in Moyglass National School have been, effectively, without a hot school meal service since last Christmas. Can that please be investigated?

I will take that away and look at it. That should not have happened. One of the things pointed out in the chapter was that concern. We told schools to either keep their existing supplier in that situation or do a quick procurement process by calling three providers and making sure that there are-----

I will just say-----

I am not calling it out as a weakness, but that should have happened.

In fairness, I know the Department has been trying to solve this problem because I have been writing and in contact with it. I know the Department has been in contact with the principal. This is unfair. That is a DEIS school where the children need that service and they have been without it since Christmas. That is not fair on them.

Absolutely.

I ask the Department to go back on it.

Absolutely. There are mechanisms that could have been used. We are looking to resolve that. I know we got some criticisms about some of the mechanisms, but it was specifically because we were concerned about schools like that that we told schools to call three suppliers, get quotes and go with one or continue with their existing supplier until they have time to run the new procurement. It was exactly to avoid that situation. I am surprised it happened at Moyglass. We are looking into it and we will sort it out.

I appreciate that. I thank Mr. McKeon.

I thank the Secretary General and his team for coming in today, as well as the officials from the Department of education. I also thank the Comptroller and Auditor General for his office’s report. First, this is a valuable scheme towards the provision of nutrition to schoolgoing children in the State. The benefits are well recognised not just for their physical and intellectual development but also for their ability to attend school. It supports families who may not have the resources to provide school meals for their children going to school and it helps those children who may not be getting proper nutrition at home.

There is a move away from universality but, in this particular instance, the strength and valuable part of the scheme is that there is no distinction between the child who may depend on the hot school meal scheme and the child who may not. Sometimes, unwarranted and unfair criticism has been directed against that universality. There is an attitude of, "My child does not need it". It is a particular Victorian thing whereby someone is distinguished or shamed because of their resources. Thankfully, this scheme does not feed into that. It is an egalitarian scheme. I pay tribute to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, for his commitment to the scheme and to his Department for rolling it out.

Of course, if a scheme as large as this is rolled out with the types of money, figures and moving parts involved, it is going to expose weaknesses, perhaps, in governance around procurement and quality and so forth. That is not a criticism. I personally see this as an opportunity to refine the scheme in all those respects because this has been rolled out very rapidly.

I will pick up again on the quality side of it. I am heartened by the reviews because, when I was first elected, I saw on the media that there were a lot of urban myths going around about the quality of the food being supplied. It is reassuring that the vast majority of the food provided is nutritious. It is of high nutritious value with low salt and fat intake. That is hugely important. There is a high satisfaction rating among both parents and children. We cannot always regulate children's behaviour in terms of their refusal to eat certain types of food as they get pickier moving into their adolescent years, and that is reflected in the data provided.

My question concerns the quality of the food - Deputy Dolan sort of referred to it - and having a robust connection between the Department of Social Protection, the Department of education and the regulatory authorities in terms of food preparation, like the HSE and the Food Safety Authority. That is my question. Is there an opportunity to strengthen that relationship? As Deputy Dolan rightly pointed out, it is a public scheme and parents entrust their children to schools and principals. It is a bit onerous to expect principals to be the only arbiters of that quality.

We are working closely. The quantitative data from the earlier behaviour and attitudes survey and the earlier RSM survey showed that a lot of the concerns about quality were somewhat overstated. They were not unfounded, but they were somewhat overstated because even the earlier survey showed 80% satisfaction ratings and so on. We were concerned to get to the bottom of it, which is why we funded the employment of a dedicated nutritionist-dietician in the health safety unit of the Department of Health to specifically examine the nutrition. We are continuing to fund work by that unit which, at the moment, is looking at the reasons children might not like some of the food and what can be done to improve the food from a child’s perspective. That work is ongoing. We funded that work and we are working closely with the Department of Health and we will continue to do so.

We have also worked closely with the Department of education on the procurement standards and supports. All of this is done through the interdepartmental working group. The Government is organised in different functions and silos. I know that the term "silos" is used a lot. What we want is to get the silos to work together. Sometimes, there is a tendency to say that the Department should do it all or the Department of education should do it. That is not the best way to deliver outcomes. We work very closely. We have the interdepartmental working group, as I said. We are funding the Department of education. The Food Safety Authority is part of that group. It has specified the new nutrition standards, which are much more detailed than the previous ones. They are going to be audited. We are developing audit tools to use next year.

It might only be a minority of cases where there is an issue, but it is about sentiment and sentiment can affect the majority feeling about a particular scheme.

The lack of reconciliation between the enrolled numbers and the parents who claim meals has exposed a hole in funding. I think the figure is €34 million. How does the Department propose to remedy that?

There are a couple of things there. First, the approach we took at the beginning and are continuing to take, although we are reviewing it and I think we will move away from it next year after the review, is that it was better to fully fund the schools for all the students because we did not want a situation to arise. When we talk about average attendance rates, on average 11% of students will not be at school on any given day. That is a great average, but if I am in a school where there is 100% attendance and we have only provided 90% funding, that is a problem. We wanted to make sure that we had a database and evidence that we could base the funding requirement on. We are reviewing that evidence at the moment and we will move to a reduced funding model based on that. It is important to say, though, that any surplus funding from one year is carried over and used to fund the subsequent year. It is not lost to the State. This is not money that is just lost-----

This is an important question. The funding for the hot school meals – this is a question rather than a criticism – is ring-fenced. Are there accounting mechanisms to ensure that money is not used by schools for other-----

Absolutely. As part of the application process every year, schools are required to operate a dedicated bank account and provide invoices and bank statements. We reconcile those every year. We do a full reconciliation to ensure the money has only been used to fund payments for school meals. That is important to us. We do a full reconciliation every year. That, together with the fact that surplus funding is carried over and taken off next year’s allocation, is a very good protection for State funds.

It can always be better. The C and AG has pointed out ways in which it can be better, for example by breaking it down to how much for the hot school meals, how much for the cold lunch option, and how much for the after-school meal. We have looked for that information and we are doing that from now on.

I would be a supporter of local procurement, if possible, but as was quite rightly pointed out, when we have a scheme with this type of money we will get a concentration of suppliers. Sometimes a bigger supplier can carry out more easily the regulatory requirements and so on because there is a cost to all of that.

I have three questions. Is there a moral hazard in the procurement process at a local level - I am not suggesting anything - given the amount of moneys involved? For example, are there contributions by the suppliers to the school for preparation? If they say they are going to provide a cooker or a heating plate and it costs €25,000, who says it really costs €25,000? Perhaps it could be provided for €15,000 and there is an overhang. I am not suggesting that this is widespread but I am saying it is an obvious weakness that could be exploited. That is one question.

The concentration of suppliers creates a weakness if the supplier goes down in the system. I know the Department has 300 suppliers but the bulk of this service is being provided by maybe five suppliers. If a supplier goes down, does the Department have a contingency plan to replace that supplier?

On the second question, on the concentration of supply, as the Deputy rightly mentioned there are two suppliers which have shared ownership and then a number of other suppliers account for roughly 70% of the market. There is a contingency there and we have shown it in operation. When one of the suppliers pulled back from 112 schools, because it said they were not economically viable, within a number of weeks we had new suppliers for 100 of those schools very quickly. The Department worked with the schools. There are other suppliers who will step up.

On the moral hazard question-----

On the moral hazard question, we have acted. We have imposed in our new contract and procurement work with the Department of education a requirement that schools cannot accept donations, which they were doing previously for things like football jerseys or school outings. They cannot do that now. It still exists for a reason in another scope. One of the feedbacks we got from the RSM Ireland study was schools saying they had the costs of waste management and costs of providing heating. They asked if we could address that, so we pushed all of that back on the supplier. We said to the suppliers that they would have to pay for the waste management, they would have to pay for the ovens and they would have to pay for the heating. It is up to the supplier to supply those. All suppliers have to provide them if this is the model they are taking. The supplier might say they are going to give the school €25,000 for an oven but whatever supplier goes in there will have to put an oven in. I do not think it is between suppliers in that case.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I will start with some high-level questions. How much was spent on hot school meals in 2024?

I will respond in respect of the 2023-24 school year. It is a different answer, from an accounting point of view, if you take our expenditure year or our financial year. The spend for the 2023-24 school year was €97 million.

How much was last year, which would be 2024-25?

It was €178 million for that school year.

So that doubled. How much was it the following year?

It was €232 million.

So we are now at 2025-26.

The figure I have for 2025-26 is for all school meals not just the hot school meals, so it is a slightly higher figure, which is €286 million.

How much is it for this school year?

We will not have the figure for this school year until the school year ends, but perhaps Mr. Hession has the estimate for 2027.

It is €268 million. That takes account of the surpluses and this is why it is a bit lower.

That is a decrease.

Yes, but we are carrying forward a surplus of approximately €30 million. As I said, we offset the surplus from one year against the expenditure the next year.

What was the actual expenditure last year?

The actual expenditure last year, for the 2025-26 school year, was €232 million.

It was €232 million. What will the actual expenditure be for this year?

I think we have budgeted for €268 million.

We have budgeted for €286 million and it will be there or thereabouts.

Okay, €286 million is a €50 million increase. What does the Department think it will be next year?

That is next year, 2027-----

The following year.

We only budget one year in advance.

The Department must do a model for two or three years.

It would be roughly the same because at this stage we have done all the schools.

That is where I am going.

It has got to its maximum level at the moment.

That is where I am going with this. I just want to get an understanding of the costs into the future. How much is it per school meal at the moment?

We currently pay €3.20.

What was it last year?

It was €3.20.

What do we think it will be next year?

We are not going to say that here because we are not going to tell school suppliers in advance what we might want to pay them or not pay them. At this point there is no plan for a review of the prices.

I will move on from that to the concentration element. Obviously, with concentration I presume there are huge economies of scale at work. A larger company can do more for cheaper.

As Deputy Daly said, there are some overheads a firm will have in meeting the regulatory requirements such as health and safety and so on. Obviously, if a company can share those across a larger number of meals, they can produce them per unit-----

It makes sense. It is basic sense. Does Mr. McKeon think it will concentrate much further? Is that the trend?

It has been at this level for the last number of years. The level of concentration is not any higher this year than it was the previous year or the year before. It is roughly that level, with the top four or five accounting for about 60% to 70%.

On the point-----

In fact, I anticipate it will get less, to be honest, because a lot of the smaller providers are picking up skills and they will start bidding. We are also encouraging smaller schools to cluster. If a smaller school in the west of Ireland can get together with two or three other schools and cluster, it will provide a better contract to the local suppliers as it would be a bigger contract. We are encouraging that behaviour.

Is the Department happy that in rural areas, or even smaller areas within urban areas, it is the opposite and we are getting pick-up from all areas equally? Are there pockets of the country or pockets of different counties where the Department is not seeing the pick-up?

In Connacht, to be honest, there are difficulties. Around the country there is a pretty good spread. In terms of schools that are not taking it up for supplier-related reasons - they cannot get suppliers - this would be more concentrated in the west of Ireland, and Connacht in particular, which is where we are encouraging the clustering.

Is there anything the Department can do otherwise?

We are doing two other things in those areas. We are working with our sister Department, the Department of rural and community development, to educate the schools there on the supports that are available to them and to work with suppliers. Again, working with that Department, a facility is being set up in Connemara to produce school meals.

Okay, good.

On the school meals themselves, will Mr. McKeon just explain to me how it works? At the very start of a class period there are about 30 kids - we take it that there are 30 kids in the class - and all of them put up their hand, having filled in the form saying they want the school lunches. Is that the way it works for an indefinite period?

We fund the schools at the moment-----

I just want to know how it would work at school level. I get what the Department does.

At school level the parents are told about it. The parents are all provided, generally, with an app and the parents order the food from the school.

That is the thing. So, they put it in the app for a period of time. I am just using one class-----

It is week by week.

That is exactly what I am coming to. It is week by week and they order for the week ahead. If the kids do not take it or do not want it, it is obviously left as waste.

There is a 48-hour cancellation policy, so they can cancel 48 hours before the meal is due to arrive.

I want to ensure it is not the case that orders are going in but the meals are not wanted or somebody drops off. Are we confident that this information is being relayed back directly to the supplier?

It is up to the parent to get back on and cancel the order.

What if they do not?

The food will be delivered and that is part of the issue with waste. We see that 11% of meals are wasted because children do not attend school. As anyone who has children will know, and as we can remember from when we were children ourselves, they might wake up with a sick tummy. The parent is not going to cancel because it is within the 48 hours. Some of that is inevitable but we would try to encourage parents, if they know their child is going to be absent, to get back on and cancel it because otherwise a meal is going to be delivered, which in some-----

Is the number for waste 19% or 20%, roughly?

It is 18.9% overall and 11.1% is associated with non-attendance.

How does the Department know that? What is the metric behind the waste?

We know that because of the nutrition review and the survey we did. That is the way we gathered that information.

How was that captured?

It was captured when the nutritionist did a study of all the schools. I cannot remember the exact number. We visited schools and we also did it through the survey.

That is actually the ones that were checked at the end of the day and after multiple surveys.

The nutritionist visited 54 schools, examined those schools and looked at the reasons for waste. For those 54 schools, it was 18.9% overall, or 11.1% once you took out absences.

We will just say 20% because it is easier if we round it up. We will say 20% of €286 million. That is roughly €54 million going to waste. Is that right?

I would not use those terms. I can understand why the Deputy would but I would not use them.

Mr. McKeon used the word "waste". I did not use it, and he gave me the number €286 million.

That is the term-----

It is roughly €54 million.

I would not say it is going to waste. Every programme like this and every food catering business in the world will have an overhead where food goes unused. The overhead in Ireland-----

Okay, let us say €54 million worth of food goes in the bin.

No. I really want to take the Deputy up on that. There is an overhead. Prior to hot school meals being introduced, Barnardos and others estimated that 10% of children were going without food every day.

That is a different argument.

I want to make the case-----

That is a rationale for introducing it. That is not the question.

It is not going to waste. The point I am making about that-----

Where is it going?

-----is that there is always going to be an overhead. I am sorry; I do not like to use the word "waste" on that. There is an overhead. If you want to get to-----

I just saw the word "waste". They were Mr. McKeon's words.

If you want to get to the children who would not get a meal other than for the fact that it is provided through hot school meals-----

That is a different discussion.

-----you have to provide a mechanism, and part of the cost of getting there is a recognition that some children in those schools will not eat the meals going to the children who absolutely need them. It is an overhead and it is one we have to accept-----

Now Mr. McKeon is just talking without actually having been asked a question and he is making a very different point. I am not arguing the rights or wrongs of it. I am just asking the question, and the question was answered with a completely different answer.

I am acknowledging that amount of money but I would not call it waste. It is the cost of getting food to children who need it.

The food is wasted. The value of the food that is wasted is €54 million. That is the answer.

It is uneaten. It is an overhead.

I will go back to the procurement perspective. I know that the lads were talking earlier about the schools, but how do we ensure what the monitoring of procurement is in the individual schools? Do we check or assess it? Do we even do tests on the individual school afterwards?

What happened up until the recent changes was that each school had to make an application. It had to certify that it was going through the procurement process. That certification was signed by the school principal and a member of the board of management. Following the review by the C and AG and our own reviews, we are introducing a mechanism whereby they have to provide the contract number and the tender reference number when they are applying for funding. If they do not have that, and we will check it, they will not get funding.

Do drinks come with the meals?

No.

No, there is no drink with the hot school meals. Some of the other meal options have drinks.

They have drinks.

Yes, but the hot school meals do not.

We recommend that the children drink water with the hot school meals and the water is freely available in the school.

Okay. There is no cost in that, basically. I know that came up as a discussion before. That covers everything. I thank the witnesses.

I thank everybody for coming in today. I want to start off with the suppliers in relation to procurement. They seem to have won an awful lot of contracts. The top supplier has won €57.7 million in contracts, while the fifth largest supplier won €14.2 million. I do not want to say there is a monopoly, but how are these five suppliers getting such a vast amount of the money, like €57.7 million? Do any of those suppliers offer incentives to the schools to acquire the contract?

They should not, and we tell schools they should not. It is part of the contract documentation that they should not and we have been very clear on that. We have come across cases where school football jerseys were provided - that kind of thing - and we have written to the schools involved and told them that we would withdraw funding if that continued. That is what we will do.

Have there been any other instances?

No. Deputy Daly raised the issue earlier of how we now require the providers to fund the waste management and the ovens, etc., but that is common to all providers so it should not give any an advantage. We have some numbers here. We do 500 inspections a year in schools, and one of the things we look at is whether the schools were provided with things like sports jerseys and that. In the examination of the period 2024 to 2025, four provided sports jerseys and four provided money to staff members in the schools.

How much money did they provide?

They are low amounts of money. I do not know the exact amounts but they were low amounts.

Should we not be investigating why suppliers of these companies that have been procured are giving money to staff members to ensure they get the contract?

It is not to ensure that they get a contract. They would not put it that way. They gave money to staff members who were distributing the meals in the schools. We have raised that with the schools concerned. We told them we would withdraw funding and they have stopped it.

How much money?

The moneys ranged, I think, from €50 and up. They are small amounts.

And up? What is the "up"?

The highest one was €8,500.

Sorry-----

That was not to staff members. The €8,500 was in relation to a funding donation for sports and other equipment.

What was the money to the staff members?

I do not have that figure. I can get it and send it to the Deputy.

Does this show again that we are living in a corrupt system, where somebody who is trying to get a contract is actually giving money to staff members to get that contract?

We do not agree with that.

What has Mr. McKeon done about it?

That is why we have an inspection regime. Five hundred schools are visited every year, which is close to 20%. Where we find it, we stop it, and when we stop it, we tell the school that-----

These schools have been stopped from getting procurement from these contracts. Is that correct?

We have told the schools that we will not give them funding for hot school meals.

Has the contract been stopped for the school in question that got the funding last year?

This is going back over a period of time. The process is-----

Has it been stopped?

Let me explain. For anything like this in any scheme - we do it in our social welfare payments - you give a warning. You tell them to fix it and if they do not fix it-----

Okay, the Department gave the warning. I am all about consequences. If the Department gave the warning, did it stop funding the school?

No. It fixed the problem.

The Department did not stop funding the school.

It fixed the problem. It stopped taking the money so it keeps getting funding. Remember, at the back of this, there are children getting meals.

What were the consequences for the company that won the contract?

The company was doing nothing illegal, unfortunately, but under the new procurement standards and a new contract, that specifically-----

Would it not be considered bribery?

When you are paying somebody to provide a service, no. That was the construct.

I would consider it bribery if somebody was paying a school to get the contract. As well as that, how often has it happened that the Department has not heard about it? In the first instance, can we have the name of that provider or supplier, please? He acquired €57.7 million from the Department.

I do not think it is that supplier.

Okay.

I do not have the name of the supplier here.

Can we have the names of the suppliers then? The figure for the top supplier is €57.7 million. Who is that supplier?

I am sorry; I was warned not to say anything that would identify anyone, so I cannot do that. That is the reality.

Okay.

If I can just make a point, our concern in these matters is that there are children in the school. If we withdraw funding without giving the school a chance to rectify it, that is a problem for the children, so we give the school a chance to rectify it. We have now specifically put it in the procurement documentation that no incentives or payments are to be made to school members.

My concern is that every week, we come into this committee and see a serial waste of taxpayers' money. Taxpayers are working long and hard to earn the money. They have to pay this money to the State and every week we see a complete waste of taxpayers' money. There are 50 points. I want to go ahead-----

I wish to make one small point, if I can. The issue in that particular case was that these were not teachers. They were effectively part-time administrative caretaker staff in the school who stayed back.

It is a great number if you can get it, is it not?

They stayed back to distribute the meals and the provider would say that it paid them to do work. This was outside their school contract.

Mr. McKeon is telling me it was not bribery.

That was the argument. We said-----

The Department has nailed it now. It has stopped that practice. Is that correct?

We have. We said we do not care-----

Mr. McKeon can tell me that practice has stopped.

It should have stopped.

It should have stopped or it has stopped?

I cannot go around all 3,500 schools to make sure.

Mr. McKeon should know this. If there is bribery going on with this scheme, he should know.

The reality is that as long as you have a scheme, as long as you have people-----

Mr. McKeon is the Secretary General of the Department.

The reality is, and the Deputy knows this as well as I do, that in any scheme where you have money involved and you have people involved, there will be some people who will try to manipulate the scheme. You have controls in place that try to minimise that. That is the reality.

Okay, I want to move on. Mr. McKeon said the Department had had 500 inspections. Was that in one year?

Yes. Last year, it was 555.