Universal Free School meals

I object to the word "free" in the thread title.

It's taxpayer-financed school meals.

Nothing is free.

Let me straighten that out for you.

If a child is being sent to school hungry, with no food. This is a sign of neglect, it does not mean that the child is being neglected or abused, it’s a sign. If you work with children you are legally mandated to report signs of neglect/abuse.

TUSLA should then investigate to see if the child is being neglected. They do this by meeting with the child and its parent/s. If there are more signs of neglect, they may be forced to take action. That is up to them.

As stated previously, under the Children First Act 2015, anyone working with children has an obligation to report any and all signs of neglect or abuse. They don’t have to prove neglect or abuse, they just have to report any signs of it. It’s not an opt-in or opt-out situation, they are legally bound. This is explained in the Children First e-learning that everyone working with children or vulnerable adults are mandated to take.

If the parents, despite their high education and well-paying careers, don't have the wherewithal to manage a home to the standard required to feed their children properly, that's a huge issue right there.

Its not behind the curve though. Two of Europe's most advanced countries don't do it at all. While many on the list such as England has seen it devolve into Burger and chips every day. America is in that boat too. In other countries there is widespread theft of the food. We are barely getting prefabs out of our schools. People should be providing nutrition for their kids and taken to task if they don't. If people don't know how then that is the problem that needs to be solved.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/09/04/school-meals-in-europe-which-countries-provide-free-food-for-students

Finally something sensible.

Schools were asked to apply for it, maybe it’ll be rolled out to all eventually but, right now, it’s going to the 900, or so, schools that have applied.

Yes, but someone's ability to do a complex job and get well paid for it is wholly irrelevant if they can't feed their kids. Their inability to feed their kids is a huge parenting issue, and it doesn't cease to be a huge parenting issue because they do a complex job and get well paid for it.

And if he couldn't feed his kids, it's likely he couldn't manage to clothe them, clean them or teach them how to interact with society, either.

Just feeding his kids for him would be a feel-good band aid, not solving the real problem, and leaving the kids neglected.

What meal would they need to serve for Ramadan out of interest?

How anyone could be against feeding children I don't know. Fair enough to reduce the child benefit to pay for it however.

Muslims tend to fast from dawn to sunset during Ramadan so I suppose they would not need school meals on those days. Some people abstain from drinking water, I'm not sure if kids often do that though.

can confirm this, I've a kid in 3rd class and his school applied, my nephew in a different school isn't getting it because the school didn't apply.

My kid has been satisfied with the food so far, apart from one that he just didn't enjoy but did his best to eat some of it - the other two, he ate all of what was given to him. It's handy enough, and means we aren't having to make lunches any more. He gets his bowl of porridge at home each morning, brings a snack for little break and gets this meal at lunch time, then comes home and has dinner with us in the evening.

Again, this was in reply to a scenario where the hot meal was cooked and served from a canteen like location that only provided a single option. So in this particular case they would need to have a list of students who are observing the fasting so they don't cook too much and waste. With this modern system, if they fast they simply don't order.

If you're replying to me in the second paragraph, I'm not against this, actually I fully support it, though I'm against reducing child benefit - simply because some people would rather have the full benefit at the expense of denying their children this meal.

Kid is just home, and said today's dinner was the best one so far. I think he'll enjoy tomorrow's also, so 80% hit rate in week 1 is a good ratio, there are 30 options on the menu so we can swap a few next week and keep an eye on what ones he likes then rotate them until the end of june.

Between this and the free books, this govt has done well by Primary School children and families of such. It should be applauded for that.

Lot of people don't feel like eating first thing in the morning. Great to have a hot meal in the middle of the day. Seems here that some don't believe workers should have a canteen at work, bring your own.

Or do like Britain in the 80s, use vouchers. People that can afford to and want to, buy vouchers for their kids. Those that cannot afford them, get vouchers supplied. Those that don't want either, send a packed lunch or bring kids home for lunch.

Remove the cost from children’s benefit. No faffing about and everyone knows the child is benefiting

No, they're not. But that's not what we're discussing; we're discussing children who are hungry because they are not being fed properly. They are being neglected.

No, I'm afraid "fed properly" is not subjective.

I think youll find the idea could be debated many places outside of boards too

Its people that just want to say an idea is 100% correct and not entertain any debate that Id worry about...

I cook at least twice a day at home, as I do not believe that sandwiches are proper food. Can I bring my kids hot lunches to school? You know I cannot, for a lot of reasons. So the next best thing is the school providing hot food for lunch.

…we dont live in a perfect world, many households simply cannot afford to feed all occupants appropriately all the time, this occurs due to all sorts of reasons, but some of the most common would be long term unemployment, long term mental health issues and other health issues including physical health issues, long term addiction problems, relationship breakdown, which of course can lead to some of the previous reasons, etc etc

its very important we as a society dont go on the internets and simply 'judge' those that find themselves in such situations, and praise collective actions, such as this one, we would call this having empathy and compassion for those that require such services…..

I have a feeling a well put together/nutritionally balanced packed lunch (if the kid would eat eat it🙂) might well be far in advance of whats likely to be served up as a hot lunch in a lot of school canteens to probably 100s of kids.....nutrition is definitely an area we can do better on as individuals than relying on most catering.... imo

Fair enough..perhaps you are right

I cant help feeling praising something unconditionally ..that doesnt have an element of addressing the root cause or an additional commitment to address some of these issues (even incrementally over a long time period).....isnt necessarily the correct thing to do

We tried that before, we sent tonnes of kids to industrial schools.

How did that work out?