DEIS schools meals funding
Deputy Steven Matthews asked how newly expanded DEIS schools would be funded for school meals before the October budget. The Taoiseach said the expansion was the largest ever and that the Minister would be worked with on meals and other supports.
The Government recently announced a €32 million expansion of the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, schools programme, bringing in about 310 schools and 60,000 students. I understand, however, that the school meals programme for those DEIS schools is not currently funded and will not be until we pass the budget in October. I ask the Taoiseach to consider how we can fund those schools in the weeks until we pass the budget. He knows how important this schools meals programme is for our students going to school.
Comment on this
The Deputy acknowledged that this has been the largest ever increase in the DEIS programme. We will work with the Minister regarding other aspects of supports for those schools, particularly in terms of meals, etc. It was interesting to see that the systemic study undertaken by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, of the education systems North and South, that we funded under the shared island programme, identified the DEIS programme as being a key factor in better school completion rates in the Republic and in progression to third level. That is illustrative of the value of this funding. I will come back to the Deputy on this issue.