Nine more Kilkenny schools to be included in Hot Meal Programme

An additional nine schools in County Kilkenny will be added to the Hot Meal School Programme according to Mayor Andrew McGuinness.

Speaking to The Kilkenny People, Mayor McGuinness said , “the Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys TD, has today announced that 168 additional primary schools have been approved for the Hot School Meals Programme including nine in Kilkenny.”

“The announcement means almost 2,200 Primary Schools across the country are now eligible to receive Hot School Meals,” he said.

“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,” he said.

The Kilkenny schools who will benefit from the programme include St Beacon's NS Mullinavat, Owning National School, Bunscoil McAuley Rice, St Brenadan's National School,  Holycross National School, Church Hill Mixed NS, Gaelscoil Osraí, Scoil Seamus Naofa, Lisfunchin National School.

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.

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.

“This is great news for students in those local schools and I very much welcome this. Together with the free school books I think we are making great progress but I would like to see these schemes continue to expand as quickly as possible,” concluded Mayor Andrew McGuinness.