School meal fears for 6,000 pupils with coeliac disease

Lack of specific guidelines means 'almost 6,000 children are being excluded and discriminated against' every day.

No one is "taking responsibility" for ensuring school meals are safe for an estimated 6,000 coeliac children as schools re-open, the Coeliac Society of Ireland has warned.

Many parents have said they cannot trust schools to feed their children, after all meals provided in some schools this week were marked "may contain gluten". Some children with coeliac disease were offered only fruit to eat.

The society is urging parents to write to their local TDs highlighting the issue.

Coeliac Society strategy and advocacy lead Gill Brennan said it raised concerns with Safefood and the Department of Education in recent months to no avail.

“We don’t know really where the responsibility for this lies,” she said. “Nobody is taking responsibility for this.” 

Ms Brennan said she understood new guidelines were to be developed for this school year but this has not happened.

What is needed from suppliers is “coeliac-safe, gluten-free meals for the coeliac child, that is important".

“Therefore, the guidelines that providers are using must state that a coeliac child has to have a safe, gluten-free food.” 

She said the lack of specific guidelines means “almost 6,000 children are being excluded and discriminated against” every day.

The Nutrition Standards for Hot School Meals document published by Healthy Ireland states it was developed for the Department of Social Protection by the Department of Health, Safefood, and the HSE.

It does not include advice on food for pupils with coeliac disease, instead linking to a page on the Safefood website about food allergies, which includes gluten. It does offer specific advice for vegetarian meals.

“When you look at the Healthy Ireland guidelines, there is not a mention of coeliac disease in it, it’s treated as an allergen, which is completely wrong,” Ms Brennan said.

Children are not allergic to gluten, it is actually physically attacking their intestines. It is a medical condition, a chronic disease and there is no cure.

She added: “There is no ‘a little bit coeliac’ or ‘extremely coeliac’” and it is not related to food fads around eating wheat.

When a child with coeliac disease eats gluten they can experience vomiting, diarrhoea, being unable to sleep or concentrate.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

“There can be asymptomatic children who will have no symptoms, but the problem is the damage it does to the intestines,” she said, adding this causes “horrendous” long-term health problems.