Irish Examiner view: Children need hot meals — and the schools to eat them in

Making hot meals available to all schoolchildren in the State is worthwhile objective, but there is still no timeline as to when 58 school-building projects currently on hold will proceed.

Minister for Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys at St David’s Primary School in Artane, Co Dublin announcing plans for the roll-out of the Hot School Meals Programme. Picture: Maxwells

For many of the older generation, the notion of school dinners was something confined to old British comic books, complete with food fights and surly cooks.

School meals are no laughing matter for many Irish schools in the 21st century, however. With increasing homelessness and housing insecurity, a guaranteed hot meal being served in school can be crucial to a child’s educational success — it improves attendance, concentration levels, and general health.

This is why the news yesterday that there is to be a rollout of hot school meals for children attending all Deis schools from this September is particularly welcome.

It is a recognition that there are many families in our society for whom that hot meal is a vital part of their budgeting and planning — the various causes of this situation can be discussed another day — and the decision to raise funding rates is also welcome. As reported, those funding rates, €1.90 per child, seem particularly low in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis driving up prices in all sectors of the economy.

In making the announcement of this September’s rollout, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys also confirmed that from next year her department will begin rolling out the hot meals scheme to all remaining primary schools, on a phased basis, with a view to meeting the evaluation report’s recommendation of universal hot school meal provision by 2030.

This surely begins the conversation on extending the scheme into all secondary schools, which is a logical next step. As with the primary school meals programme, extending the scheme would surely be an aid to attendance and concentration among second-level pupils also.

However, on the same day as the school meal announcement, there was a glimpse of a parallel reality for our schools. As reported here, Education Minister Norma Foley confirmed this week in the Dáil that there is still no timeline as to when 58 school-building projects currently on hold will proceed, though they are due to go to tender or construction this year.

It goes without saying that making hot meals available to all schoolchildren in the State is worthwhile objective, but what is that objective worth if the most basic school facilities are not in place to begin with?