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AN ALTERNATIVE LUNCH - THE HOT MEALS SCHEME
Reaping the Benefits of the Hot Meal Scheme Hot Meals scheme a real winner in Inchicore
Chicken 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.
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28 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?
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 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-
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
odegradable and all the food waste goes in the brown food waste bin. It may be 2019 but with starving children in our classrooms, over 10,000 homeless people in the country, we have a real problem in our society so we have to make sure our children are at least given food while they educate themselves.
On a national level as part of Budget 2019, Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, announced in September that hot dinners will be provided on a pilot basis to 35 other schools to help some 7,200 children back in September 2019 at a cost of €1m for
2019 and €2.5m in a full school year.
The pilot will initially be rolled out at primary schools that do not currently avail of the dinner option under the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection’s School Meals Programme. Schools that do not have a canteen or kitchen facilities for the preparation of the hot dinners on site will also be prioritised over other schools throughout the country.
A Central Statistics Office’s survey of income and living conditions in 2018 estimated that one in 11 people in Ireland experience food poverty and that the access to food needed to make up a healthy diet was very restricted. 470 schools right across the country applied for the hot meal scheme, while there were only 35 places up for grabs. This is a ratio of 14 school places to 1 ratio. Out of the 470 schools that applied it was found that more than 300 of the schools said they have no cooking facilities, while more than 50 said they had no running water for cooking.
By Ronan Gargan
