Kitchens and scratch-made meals 'should be mandatory in all new schools'

TDs and senators further suggested that the hot school meals programme be rolled out to secondary schools

The committee recommended meals be prepared on site in schools from scratch, with children eating together in a communal setting.

Kitchens and dining areas should be mandatory in all new build schools as part of a bid to improve the State’s hot school meal offering, TDs and senators have recommended.

A new report published by the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth also called for the programme to be moved out of the Department of Social Protection and under the remit of the Department of Education.

The report was compiled after several public meetings with stakeholders regarding the scheme, which provides hot meals at lunchtime to all children in Irish primary schools.

The committee recommended that school meals should be prepared on site in schools from scratch, with children eating together in a communal setting. It suggested that local staff could be employed directly to cook and serve the meals.

This would be done in part, they said, by mandating the construction of a kitchen and dining or canteen area in all new school buildings.

The committee also called for water charges for schools to be abolished, with unpaid water charges struck off.

It also called for reusable plates and cutlery to be made mandatory.

The Department of Social Protection currently oversees the hot school meals scheme. However, the committee called for it to be moved to the Department of Education as an “urgent national priority with the commensurate budget and an expanded unit” that is “properly resourced” with “dedicated professional staff”, including procurement specialists and dieticians.

If the Department of Education did take over the programme, the committee suggested that it should issue a “pre-approved list of suppliers by county to all school principals” by the third quarter of 2026.

Other recommendations include the creation of an interdepartmental working group that would examine things such as age-appropriate portion sizes, the nutritional specifications of food and the possible inclusion of meals, as well as further elimination of highly processed foods.

They further suggested that the hot school meals programme should be rolled out to secondary schools, as well as support for rural schools to ensure all primary and post-primary institutions are able to participate in the scheme.

The committee further called for home economics to be made mandatory in all primary and post-primary schools as part of SPHE/wellbeing programmes. In addition, they suggested home economics should be mandatory for all Transition Year students.