Fiona Carey, from Co Wicklow, says her seven-year-old daughter has been availing of the Government’s hot school meals scheme since November.
Carey describes it as “really convenient” as her daughter is a “picky eater” and she had struggled to find suitable foods for her lunch box.
“She won’t eat sandwiches, anything substantial,” she says. “I was always putting in snack food anyway, so it’s not like she was getting a really healthy lunch before this happened. She only eats the plain pasta so there’s nothing really in that that I’m too worried about.”
She says the programme could have been better designed, with more focus on fresh Irish food and suppliers, but that the concept is good.
“I think there’s been a bit of a panic with it in the last week or two. Some people are trying to get it pulled out of schools altogether now. I don’t think that’s a good idea because there are kids who actually really rely on it and obviously processed food is better than no food at all, which unfortunately is what some kids are getting ... It’s kind of a case of balancing what kids will realistically eat with making sure it’s not ultra-processed.”
Chris Cummins, from south Dublin, whose six-year-old daughter also receives hot meals, says that although there are lots of “positives”, including not having to prepare lunches every morning and a focus on meals rather than snacking, the quality of food is “not amazing”.
Cummins says he examined the nutritional information of the sweet-and-sour chicken with broccoli that was being offered at his daughter’s school and found it had twice the recommended daily allowance of sugar for a child.
“I am a little worried my daughter’s lunches last year were healthier and now wondering are we going for convenience at the cost of overall health,” he says.
“That’s my daughter’s perspective but I get for other kids this might be their only hot meal of the day and they’re not as fortunate. You’re solving that problem but creating the other problems across the spectrum of children that this will be rolled out to.
“We try and mitigate elsewhere in the day. It kind of becomes her ‘cheat meal’ of the day.”
Carey and Cummins were among the many readers who responded to an Irish Times callout seeking views on the scheme.
The programme began as a pilot scheme in 2019, and has grown from 30 primary schools availing of it to nearly 2,200, with more than 345,000 children now eligible to opt in.
As part of last year’s budget, the programme is due to be extended to all remaining primary schools in 2025, meaning that 3,200 schools and 550,000 pupils will be eligible.
A total of €300 million has been allocated to the programme for this year, according to the Department of Social Protection. It says the objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in “taking full advantage of the education provided to them”.
Concerns about the scheme were raised in an interview with UCC food policy lecturer Ruth Hegarty in The Irish Times last week.
Hegarty said some meals being delivered through the scheme were loaded with ultra-processed foods, known to cause a range of serious and life-threatening diseases.
And Prof Donal O’Shea, the HSE national clinical lead for obesity, recently told RTÉ's Upfront with Katie Hannon the scheme needed to be evaluated before it was rolled out nationally, with the State already paying millions annually. “We should not be providing ultra-processed anything under this scheme,” he said.
Michelle Donohoe and her husband Stephen, who is a chef, were unimpressed with the quality of food their 10-year-old son was receiving under the programme and decided to become providers to local schools around Knock, Co Mayo.
The couple developed Steak Out Catering, which came under the schools programme a year ago and supplies nine national schools and a creche.
Donohoe says the food is cooked fresh every morning, with sauces and curries made from scratch, and that “everything has hidden vegetables”. They are also in the process of expanding meal options to include healthy chicken and fish goujons, she says.
“There are some processed foods on the menu but we try to keep them to one day a week as treats,” she says. “They’re the kind of items that you would get emails from parents saying ‘could you put chicken goujons on more than one day a week, or fish fingers on more’. We really stand our ground and say the guidelines are specific and state, if offered [at all], should only be offered one day a week. We stand by that.”
Donohoe adds they actively seek feedback from parents to see “what’s working and what’s not”. She says sustainability is also a priority for their business, and they use reusable containers that have separate compartments.
“It’s frustrating when there is so much bad publicity that is being set by a lot of the big providers,” she says. “They’re doing tens of thousands of meals a day; ours is a drop in the ocean. But we’re all working off the same profit margins, we all get €3.20 per dinner. If the small guys that don’t get the big funding [are] not able to buy in bulk like they are – if we can do it, why can’t they?”
Primary schoolteacher and vice-principal Trina Traas says she was against the Government’s programme “from the beginning”.
Traas, a teacher for more than 30 years and based in Co Tipperary, explains that before the programme was rolled out in her school last Easter children were bringing in “very healthy lunches”, often in their own compartmentalised boxes.
“I didn’t know why we were replacing a perfectly good system for the vast majority to cater for a few, instead of having some programme where you could cater for the few,” she says.
Traas says her school is not Deis but does have some students from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. She says the school felt “pressurised” by parents to roll out the scheme, which provides hot lunches to primary schoolchildren at no cost to parents.
Under the programme, schools are provided funding by the Government and then tender out for a provider, at which point any food company or corporation can apply, with a per meal budget of €3.20.
Traas says she and other teachers took samples from nine different providers and selected the one they felt would best cater for the nutritional needs of their pupils.
While she acknowledges the programme does help those who the school believes are at risk of food poverty, the vice-principal adds “there is so much wrong with it”. Traas points to food wastage, portion sizes, the quality of the food as well as “setting children up for eating ready meals from supermarkets”.
She says on one particular day this week, 186 hot dinners were delivered – 11 were not used as the children were absent, 38 were not eaten at all and 37 were half-eaten.
“I feel over the years I really tried hard to encourage healthy eating,” she says. “I now feel that anything I was hammering home is all gone and now feel disillusioned.
“Of all the things that have happened during my time during my teaching career and all the changes that have taken place, this is the one that has really annoyed me. I think it was done without vision.”
The scheme firstly implies that a hot meal would be more nutritious than a cold meal and that simply isn’t true
— Dietician Orla Walsh
The Department of Social Protection says it has an “oversight role” in relation to the programme and conducts regular inspections of all schools.
“All schools must submit a sample menu with their application for the school meals programme,” a department spokesman says.
“Funding will not be provided for food that doesn’t comply with these standards. All participating schools must also submit to this department a signed service level agreement which clearly sets out the school’s responsibilities and obligations in terms of compliance with nutritional standards. Adherence to the agreed menu options is also monitored.”
An interdepartmental working group has been set up, which includes the Department of Health and the Department of Education, to oversee and make recommendations on the operation of the scheme, including in relation to nutrition inspection and evaluation.
“On any occasion, where there may be any concerns about the quality of food provided under the school meals programme in any specific school, they should be brought to the department’s attention, and we will follow up accordingly,” the spokesman adds.
Gabrielle Chhoa is a GP in Clifden, Co Galway. The programme is expected to be rolled out at her children’s school this year. Chhoa says she is unlikely to sign her children, aged nine and seven, up, based on feedback and reports to date.
She and others suggest making parents pay a small amount per day if it ensured food quality improved and resulted in less waste.
“Why not pay €2 a meal?” she says. “Parents that can’t, won’t. I just think it’s being rolled out too quickly, trying to tick the box when things have not been properly considered.”
Dietitian Orla Walsh concurs and says the programme should have been “done differently”, including a more thorough assessment at pilot level and upscaling “when ready”. Walsh also questions why the meals need to be hot.
“It firstly implies that a hot meal would be more nutritious than a cold meal and that simply isn’t true. It also adds in logistical issues and cost issues,” she says.
“Schools have to store and heat the meals and provide them hot enough. In terms of food waste, it might increase it, because once a meal is heated it shouldn’t really be reheated. So therefore it shouldn’t be sent home. What happens with the leftover food differs from school to school.”
Walsh says while she is in favour of reducing food poverty in Ireland, ultimately funding would be better spent on more targeted measures based on examining nutritional gaps in Irish children’s diets.
“There’s a lot they could be doing with that money, not just on education,” she says. “For example, we know that kids on a whole aren’t consuming enough dairy, fruit or vegetables. It could be used for supplying milk like they used to in schools, supplying fruit and vegetables, assessing what are the nutritional gaps in Irish diets and trying to meet them and doing it in a way that reduces food waste by focusing on foods that have a longer shelf life.”
Meanwhile, St Vincent de Paul said it strongly welcomed the introduction of the programme over five years ago and its expansion since then. Food and energy continue to be the largest issues for those who seek help , the charity said, “and for some children the school hot meal sometimes provides their only hot meal in a day”.
“SVP welcomes the availability of healthy options and the value in schools making these options available,” it added.
Parent Mark Dykes, from Co Sligo, says the programme hasn’t been rolled out at the school attended by his two daughters, aged five and seven, but describes it as “a great idea” and use of resources.
Dykes believes the benefits for children and families outweigh any concerns he may have around food quality and oversight. “Would I have concerns? Yes, of course,” he says. “Are those concerns insurmountable ? Absolutely not.
“This would be a nice challenge for our new incoming Government and a win is more than possible with a proper approach and the food expertise and knowledge that we tell the world we have.”
There are no current plans to extend the scheme to post-primary schools.
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