Reaping the Benefits of the Hot Meal Scheme Hot Meals scheme a real winner in Inchicore
C
hicken or vegetable curry with brown rice, turkey meatballs with potatoes or penne bolognese and tomato pasta. This looks like a menu you’d see in a restaurant, but in fact, it is the lunch menu available in Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School, Goldenbridge in Inchicore. The Goldenbridge School was the first school to pilot the scheme in January 2019. Nine months later and now another 35 schools have been given the go-ahead to offer students a healthy menu at no charge to the parents. A year has almost passed since Goldenbridge were able to offer these nourishing lunches to their students, but what benefits, if any have been seen?
28
At the time the pilot scheme was launched, local TD for the area, Joan Collins, welcomed the idea of hot meals being supplied to the children at the Goldenbridge School when the scheme started in January. She said, “Research shows us the value of the provision of adequate and nutritious meals for a child’s health, learning, attention and educational achievement”. She added, “I call on the government to introduce free hot meals to pupils right around the country.” Speaking to TD Collins to discuss how the scheme has worked since it began in January 2019, she said, “the hot meals scheme has been great for the pupils of this school especially for the children that would be living in emergency accommodation along with their families. A hot meal would be crucial for them
Dub8 Magazine master Final.indd 28
in that situation.” TD Collins was one of the representatives to call on the government to have this scheme implemented right across the country. Furthermore, Collins added, “every child should have a full belly when absorbing education and I will be keeping a close idea and putting pressure on the government to roll the hot meal scheme through lots of other schools.” Tonya Hanly is the school principal at Our Lady of Lourdes school in Inchicore and she believes the children are a source of hope, “some of my pupils would live in emergency accommodation with their families having no access to cooking facilities, remember this might be the only meal these children might get, the lives of these children can be tough. They can’t even go outside to play so it’s good that we can supply
our school, so the menu caters for everyone’s requirements. We are the proof of concept school so we would be very disappointed if we didn’t have it next year.” Food poverty and high rents are a problem in the Dublin 8 area, the same goes for all of the inner- city, “children get into a routine so it’s great that they know when they come into school that they will get a hot meal.” A food company called Carambola delivers the food at 12 o’clock every day and within 7/8 minutes they are all on the children’s desk. All the pots that the food comes in are bi-
“It’s been a great success, the children love it and we can really see the benefits” them with a hot meal and we have noticed in our school that one of the benefits of having these meals supplied is the children have lots more energy when it comes to the afternoon.” Tonya added, “They have learned about healthy eating because let’s remember there is a whole side of benefits from it than just the nutritional aspect of it too. We have 29 different nationalities here at
12/12/2019 19:03
