- An additional 168 Primary Schools across every county to receive Hot School Meals from September 2024
- Hot School Meals grows from small pilot of 30 schools to National Programme now in 2,200 primary schools
- Over 345,000 primary school children now eligible to receive Hot Meals
- Ourambition is to complete the roll-out of Hot School Meals to all remaining Primary Schools as part of Budget 2025”
Minister Rabbitte has welcomed the announcement by government of 168 additional primary schools added to the Hot School Meals Programme.
Providing school meals in primary school offers so many benefits to children, parents/guardians and teachers. These meals ensure that students have access to nutritious food, which is essential for their growth, development, and, indeed concentration.
Additionally, many surveys have reported improved academic performance, behaviour, and overall well-being and they can foster a sense of community and equality among pupils, as everyone enjoys the same meal together.
For many children, school meals might be their most reliable source of nutrition, helping to combat food insecurity and its associated health problems. Nutritious school meals can transform a child’s life.
The benefits of school meals go beyond nutrition: they improve school enrolment, attendance, attainment and cognitive development and lower dropout rate, especially for girls.
School meals programs help bridge socioeconomic disparities, ensuring that all children, regardless of their background, have equal access to quality nutrition and education.
Nutritious school meals can transform a child’s life.
The announcement means almost 2,200 Primary Schools across the country are now eligible to receive Hot School Meals.
An additional 29,000 children across 168 schools will have access to nutritious hot meals for the new school year starting from this September.
This brings the total number of primary school children now eligible to receive a Hot School Meal every day to 345,000.
Minister Humphreys said:
Since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection, I have grown the Hot School Meals Programme from a small pilot of just 30 schools to a nationwide programme which now provides nutritious hot meals in 2,200 primary schools across the country.
My ambition now is to finish the job as part of this year’s Budget and ensure that every primary school in Ireland is providing hot school meals in 2025.
I firmly believe the roll-out of hot school meals to every primary school in the country will be one of the lasting legacies of this Government.
The Department of Social Protection provides the funding to schools for the School Meals Programme, and it is the responsibility of schools to choose their supplier in an open, fair and transparent manner in accordance with national legislation and EU directives on procurement.
The Department of Social Protection will now write to each of the 168 schools to advise them on the next steps in this regard to allow schools time to prepare so that their pupils will be able to avail of Hot School Meals from September 2024.
About the Hot School Meals Programme
The Hot School Meals Programme was introduced as a small pilot of 30 schools. The government has grown the Programme significantly in recent years. Today’s announcement will bring the total number of schools with access to Hot School Meals to nearly 2,200 from September 2024.
The 168 new Primary Schools approved today expressed an interest in Hot School Meals last year.
The department has this year contacted all of the remaining Primary Schools who have not yet joined the Hot School Meals scheme asking them to submit expressions of interest in commencing the provision of Hot School Meals.
The responses will be reviewed with the aim of including more schools subject to available funding in Budget 2025.
The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement.
