Lottery for who gets a Hot School Meal ‘Wrong’

TD for Dublin South West Seán Crowe has described the current hot meal lottery system as appalling and downright wrong where children in Knockmore Junior National School did not receive funding to provide hot lunches while those in the senior school did. Teachta Crowe said that the provision of hot meals in schools should not be a lottery and that it was unacceptable that, in some cases, older siblings would be provided for, while the younger ones would go without.
 
Teachta Crowe said: “I learned this week that Knockmore Junior School would not be given funding for hot lunches as part of the government’s School Meals Scheme, while the other Knockmore Senior School got funding. This came about as the result of a new government lottery system which decides the school’s access by pulling a name out of a proverbial hat. “To turn the provision of a hot meal for hungry children in schools into a lottery is appalling and downright wrong. This has resulted in a junior and senior school both DEIS schools situated next door to one another getting different outcomes.
 
“This current Government can find the money to pay civil servants huge salaries and give tax breaks to investment funds hoovering up Irish homes, but they can’t find the money to feed hungry school children. “I will be putting questions to the Minister of Social Protection and her Department who administer the School Meals Scheme to try and make them see the utter lack of empathy and logic in discriminating between these two schools. It is clear that this Government just do not get it and are failing completely understand the reality facing so many families. “How can anyone stand over a scheme that results in an older sibling being fed a warm meal in a school, while the younger child has to make do with a piece of fruit and water?”