Universal Free School meals

Wouldn't worry about it, it's won't happen in our lifetime. How many schools in this country are actually set up to provide hot meals to children? My son is in 5th class in a school that was only built 3 years ago and there would be no space available to feed all of the children there, never mind space for facilities to prepare hot food or keep it warm if it's made offsite. This is pie-in-the-sky stuff.

Ireland being Ireland, everyone will know that anyway.

But, if identifying the kids from poor families is a problem, it's an easily-fixed one. Arrange matters so that all the kids pay for their meals with vouchers - no cash is handled in the dining hall. (There are other advantages to this.) Nobody can tell who got their vouchers for free and who was charged for them, since the distribution of the vouchers is not done in public.

I went to school in the UK had proper school meals (meat veg cooked onsite) was paid for in advance either by parents or council.

until thatcher got rid of the nutritional requirements and it ended up been chips and burgers every day

This is a good idea. Many parents are not capable of providing proper meals to their children, so this will go some way to addressing that.

A colleague was telling me that in France all kids get a three course cooked lunch every day. I doubt we could quickly replicate what they have there, but if you can serve hot meals on a cramped aeroplane then it should be possible in a school. Prepare them offsite and deliver on refrigerated trays, just needing to be reheated. I think this is a great development as regards Deis schools at least, and they should look at widening it. It would be a lot more nutritious than the kind of "gourmet" sandwiches that many Deis schools currently serve.

I heard the school principal on the radio this morning who's doing it as a pilot and she mentioned one kid who had to get time off to go to the dentist, but would be back in time "for his dinner". Those kids would previously have taken the whole day off.

hot school meals are very common even in countries that are less 'developed ' than Ireland and not just in Europe. Usually outside caterers. Parents will pay towards the costs also.

Ireland is just way behind the curve on this. The lack of hot or even any school meal provision is frankly odd, no matter a rich or poor country, fully subsidised or not.

Japanese primary schools have lunches provided, after primary it's more school shop type things.

Hot meals delivered to the school too, the classrooms turn the desk in toward each other in groups of 4 or 6 and it's other students handing out the bowls' of food. They also mostly have students doing all the cleaning in the school except for the stuff that really needs an adult. Called Kyushoku.

Wonder if anything was done here what the meals would contain, japan is rice, meat, soup and veg sides. In Ireland parents and groups be demanding avoiding everything that any human has ever been allergic too and to be fully vegan.

My kids schools and at least another 20 I know of already provide hot lunches daily to all the kids

Our school has a small servery in the hall there was three heating cabinets installed primarily to keep food hot untill lunch,the meals are prepped by an outside company,so there is no need for food production kitchens to be installed,

The meals aren't big but they suit primary aged kids , we have pasta dishes, from plain pasta and basic tomatoe sauce to , chorizo and ham pasta , broccoli and cheese sauce pasta bake , chicken curry, Salmon, roast chicken and seasonal veg , vegetarian and vegans dishes along with halal foods ,

That's only a few of the options available ,and the containers are all paper and fully recycle able.

It's a far cry from currant buns and cornbeef sandwichs from the 80s alot of us would know

Just to add we have about 300 kids in the school and they only needed to bring in one person part time to help one other person to pack the lunches into crates and deliver them to each class room .

My kids enjoy the food and from what I can gather there is little wasted except on days we have a decent absentee rate ,

As a parent I've had several of the dishes from roast chicken and vegetables to salmon and I found them nice enough, only one I didn't enjoy was a pumpkin Dahl

Fags & Drugs & nights out

They have this in my daughters school for the last year. Top quality healthy food. Quite impressed to be fair.

She's set in her ways so likes to take a packed lunch but will eat it some days.

When she doesn't eat it she throws it in the bag and brings it home.

She brought back a burrito yesterday. I slaughtered it. Nicer than any Boojum I've ever had.

Hats off to the chefs.

That money is to pay for the 4WD in the drive

Seems it’s only in disadvantaged areas yada yada.

Once again middle Ireland pays the taxes and don’t get any of the goodies is return.

You might actually be surprised,

Yes .

Considering it started out with a few schools over a few years,it's going to take time to put it in place in every school in the country

Del

That's a really awful view to take imo. Hopefully you never experience true hardship.

When I was growing up my parents went through a very tough time and when I look back on it now I can see the stress it caused them, I know for a fact that they struggled to provide food sometimes but I hope they never questioned themselves as parents through it all.

I dont think anyone would object to proper canteens at school, my kids school have a nice one, and a prepaid card system. If that was rolled out and target help for individuals it would be ok. manking it free for everyone will just end up dishing out the lowest quality food and involve a lot of waste

From what I've seen at my kids schools the food is quite healthy,all the dishes involved a meat and vegetables every day,the pasta sauces seem ok not a lot of sauce but just enough so the pasta isn't dry,

Not every school has the room or infrastructure for full and staffed canteen's especially not in primary schools ,the current plan uses minimum space and infrastructure without having to build new specific canteens