School meals and food poverty
Deputy McDonald highlighted Barnardos findings on child hunger and urged extending school meals beyond term time. The Taoiseach pointed to existing free schoolbooks and hot school meals schemes and said Government is acting on Barnardos ideas.
I want to return to the Barnardos report that was raised earlier. It found that one in five parents struggle to put food on the table for their families. It found that one in three is either not eating or eating less to ensure their children have food. I am sure the Taoiseach will agree that this is an appalling situation and evidence of the poverty that is in our society and the pressure families are under in a cost-of-living crisis. Urgent help is needed.
A suggestion has been made by Barnardos that the school meals programme be extended outside of term time and that it be extended to secondary schools. Will the Taoiseach do these two things urgently? In the case of the extension to outside of term time, obviously, we are heading into the summer holidays, which is a huge pressure point for families who struggle to feed their children.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy. As the Deputy will be aware, we will have a free schoolbooks scheme for all primary schools starting in September. That idea was first proposed by Barnardos. I remember meeting the charity about it several years ago. It was piloted by then Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh. Now the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, will make a reality of it.
The charity is now proposing the extension of hot school meals. This is also an idea that we have acted on. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is leading that programme. We will have free hot school meals in every DEIS primary school and every special school by September. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has also written out to schools that are non-DEIS to see if they would be interested in participating in this programme as well.
I had the pleasure of visiting a bunscoil in Cahir in Tipperary, with Deputy Mattie McGrath and others, to see that working last week. It is great to see it working - individualised hot school meals for kids with their names on it.
Providing that in the summer period during the holidays would involve logistical complications but we will examine it. The priority is DEIS schools and special schools first and other schools that are interested second. Then we can look at the possibility of extending it to the holiday period.