278. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the cost of expanding the hot school meals programme to include all early childhood education and care settings. [43792/24]

All early learning and care services are required, by legislation, to provide some level of snacks and meals depending on the length of time a child attends.

My Department secured €3.2m in funding in Budget 2025 for a targeted meals programme as part of Equal Start, our new funding model to support children and their families who experience disadvantage to access and experience meaningful participation in early learning and care and school-age childcare. This measure will target current gaps in provision in Equal Start services by replacing lunchboxes from home with a substantial meal to be provided by the service. This measure will run from September 2025.

An estimated full-year cost for the Government to provide universal free meals to every child in the ECCE programme would cost approximately €66.9m.

These estimates are based on the following assumptions:

Approximately 110,000 children availing of ECCE (based on 2022/23 numbers)

A daily rate of €3.20 capitation (based on Department of Social Protection's School Meals Scheme capitation)

38-week ECCE term time (182 days)

It is important to note that a large number of children in ECCE avail of ECCE as part of full-time provision. These children would already be receiving meals as required under regulation on full-time ELC and which form part of their existing (usually subsidied) fee.