Taoiseach wants summer school meals programme to combat children’s 'holiday hunger'

Simon Harris also said that the Government is 'very ambitious' about the expansion of the free school books scheme

The Taoiseach said  that there are still 'too many children' going to and coming home from school hungry.  File picture: Shane O'Neill

The Government will consider expanding the hot school meals programme over the summer months in October’s budget, with the Taoiseach keen to deal with children’s “holiday hunger”.

Simon Harris confirmed that the measure was being looked at by his own department’s child poverty unit.

“The next step I’d like to see us take is how we address holiday hunger, because if you are in a school where you’re providing hot school meals and you’re guaranteed that your child is getting a nutritious meal five days a week — all of a sudden the school is closed during the school holidays. 

"I want to see and look at this in the context of the budget, how we can continue to provide meals to children, particularly children from a disadvantaged economic background," Mr Harris said.

Mr Harris was speaking in the context of the overall hot school meals programme, saying that there are still “too many children” going to and coming home from school hungry. “We need to make sure that we close that gap,” Mr Harris said.

On education, Mr Harris said that the Government is “very ambitious” about the expansion of the free school books scheme.

“[We will] finish the job and make school books free from the day you start your junior infants to the day you complete your Leaving Cert,” he said.

The Taoiseach also said that the Government would be bringing forward a cost-of-living package in the upcoming budget, which would come into effect before the end of the year.

However, he specified that the three coalition leaders were yet to discuss the matter and there has been no decisions made on the overall size of the package.

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He did cite the 2023 cost-of-living package, saying that it was approximately €2.2bn, of which €900m was made up of electricity credits while the remaining was spent on lump sum and one-off social welfare payments.

“I think it is important when the country is doing well, when the country will have an economic surplus, a financial surplus this year. I think it’s important that we use a proportion of it to help families, to help businesses, to help people who are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.

On small businesses, Mr Harris said that they are “feeling the pain” at the moment. “You go into a shop, you go into a café, you go into a restaurant and it seems busy,” he said.

“You say to the owner that it’s bustling, and it is, but they say that there’s an awful lot of hidden cost, and the bottom line isn’t as healthy as it should be.”