Universal Free School meals

Same here, i assume its the same crowd countrywide doing it. Was impressed by that. I'd rather my taxes spent on feeding kids a decent warm meal than overpaid politicians with their fat pensions, though they'll get those too!

Tusla should be called because the child eats burgers?

😕

Reminds me of the documentary when Jamie Oliver was doing school lunches in a school in the UK. Some parents were throwing over the fence bags of McDonalds food to their kids to eat instead of the healthy food he was preparing with the lunch lady there, just mind blowing. I wouldn't believe it only it was filmed.

What I feed my child is absolutely none of your business. That's a core point in this. But that's not what you stated. So lets bring back those goal posts.

A teacher friend told me one of her students was regularly showing up to school with a McDonalds burger as lunch

Tusla are not there to micro manage the contents of every child in the states lunches, they can barely do their actual job as is.

The school will or least should have a policy on acceptable foods, if burgers are not banned then it's none of Karens business.

Personally I don't like fast food, but the reality is the nutritional content of that burger in all likelihood exceeds the child sitting beside them eating heavily processed cheese goop and crackers. Should Tusla be called for them too?

Either way it's a mental notion to get in Tusla over some burgers and is epic world class curtain twitching.

Children also need sleep and clothing.

Are schools also going to provide dormitories and free clothing?

Well I am aware of some schools who help parents out with uniforms.

No tax on clothes

Child allowance

Sleep and being dressed are both things you do before school. But sure yeah schools should have a nap on the schedule.

Where do children eat their lunch ATM? The same place where they'll eat the new school meal.

You seem very emotional about this.

Your kids don't need to partake, it's not mandatory that they eat the provided meal. If this actually ends up happening.

When I was in school we had a milk and drinkable yoghurt programme. I suppose that was woke too was it?

Not emotional about it at all, simply my considered opinion about it..

being handed a drink isn’t the same as being provided with catered lunches… bizarre really that you willingly equate the two. :)

so much wrong with this post,there doesnt need to be any kitchens or facilities etc built

many many schools already have hot food for years now,the child chooses from a menu and it gets delivered every day....look up freshtoday.ie as one business that provides this!

Well many schools seem to manage fine.

Is there nothing that you cannot find fault with?

Fwiw I work in the area of family support. The number of children that go to school hungry on a daily basis is scary. Likewise the number that don't get at least one hot meal a day.

We can argue the rights and wrongs about parenting and money but the reality is why should we continue to allow children to go hungry because of circumstances they cannot control.

I am closely involved with a family resource centre, every day the children who attend it's after-school program get a fresh cooked meal, for many this is the only proper meal they get. And evidence shows that while its sad we have to have such programs, they do work.

How people can have an issue with children getting fed in school is beyond me. The schools I would work with that provide these meals, do their best to provide healthy meals within a budget that can be as little as a euro a day per child.

keep the taxpayers dosh for more valuable initiatives

Well I am a taxpayer, glad to give it to feed hungry children.

Shouting about wokism on the internet isn't going to make them any less hungry is it?

There's an argument that giving vouchers/coupons instead of money will mean no more spending child benefit on smokes or booze.

In reality the likelihood is those vouchers will be traded for money at below face value so even less will be spent on children.

You really have no idea about the reality for a lot of families.

If you're low paid faced with climbing rents, electricity and heating gone through the roof then you have less money for other things. Government payments have helped but its a plaster on a bigger wound.

Not everyone is on welfare you know,or getting rent support. For many families just knowing that their children are getting fed in school/after-school is a huge support and means they have that tiny bit extra to get by on.

But hey you keep going on that soap box blaming families and typecasting everyone so you can feel good about the vitriol you post here.

Focusing on all the wrong things here. What, you think if a parent is malnourishing their child already, that continuing to not give them a meal at school, or worse pulling their existing meals from school, is going to magically right the wrong? You want to abuse the child to spite the parents? Walk me through your logic, the actions and all the consequences because it sounds like you're thinking how dare family support services feed the hungry. And I don't get it at all. Also seems incongruent with The Family Clause of the Irish Constitution. The alternatives are not to starve the child or orphan the child? If you think you can do better to correct disordered parents to be better parents then perhaps you should consider enlisting in family support services.

I am a bit torn here because increasingly the state is inserting itself into the role of the parent. However, there is no denying that lots of children are not getting proper meals at home.

If it means children that are not getting adequate nutritional food now get a proper meal that it’s probably for the best. Sadly there is no solution to unsuitable people having children so society has to step in.

These meals aren’t even aimed at disadvantaged schools or kids anymore.

They are now been rolled out to every school even schools in well off areas, so the theory of feeding kids who’s parlays won’t bother goes out the window.

I went to school in the North and free school meals were always a thing for eligible kids. I'm presuming it's still the case but it never really seemed to cause much of an issue.

In our primary school, they installed big ovens to heat the food. A section of the hall was sectioned off into a new room to house them. A new hall is due to be built this summer, and the current hall demolished and new classrooms constructed, so I assume this is a temporary arrangement. The ovens were installed over the Easter holiday, and the meals started when the kids went back last week. It's been a success so far from what my kids tell me, although it hasn't reduced the amount I'm making for their lunches, as they see it as extra food.

I was talking to another parent in a very small rural school. They got notified that their oven (singular) had arrived over Easter. It seems the company providing the food supplied the oven, but they were waiting on it to be hooked up to the electrical supply. I don't know what part of that school it is housed in.