*Photograph: John Mangan
RURAL SCHOOLS in North and West Clare were specifically hit with their removal from the State’s Hot School Meals scheme “because of logistics and costs,” elected representatives have claimed.
Correspondence has been issued to the Minister for Education, Helen McEntee (FG) from elected members of the West Clare Municipal District voicing their frustration on the sudden removal of close to twenty schools in the county from the scheme since September.
All DEIS and non-DEIS primary schools were eligible since 2025 for the School Meals Scheme. However in September the service was withdrawn for up to a dozen schools in the county including St Joseph’s NS Moy, Bansha NS, Carrigaholt Mixed NS, Clohanes NS, Connolly NS, Kilbaha NS, Moveen NS, Rineen NS, Rockmount Mixed NS and St Joseph’s NS Cree.
In a proposal before the West Clare MD, Cllr Joe Killeen (FF) urged the Education Minister “to negotiate an arrangement with the Health and Safety Authority that will allow the Hot Lunch in School Scheme to continue in small schools”. He explained that it was originally only available for DEIS schools but was expanded. “The regulations are so strict to fulfil the criteria that it is almost impossible in the small school. The meals costing €3.30 to supply per child which is not expensive and there are huge benefits to parents and children”.
Expecting schools to be able suddenly find an extra classroom to provide the meals was not realistic, Cllr Killeen noted.
Procurement must be analysed, Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG) flagged, “Once again we have a rural specific issue because of logistics and costs”. He said, “Procurement kills you with this, it doesn’t give any advantage for local suppliers who might serve West Clare or the rural schools of West Clare, they have to look at the whole thing, one size doesn’t fit rural”.
Lisdoonvarna based Garrihy referenced Obair in Newmarket-on-Fergus and “the opportunities around Meals on Wheels” as an example for how the scheme could be sustained in Clare. “It is a rural and county specific view to this which needs a relook at procurement, a race to the bottom on procurement doesn’t always get to quality”.
Easy solutions have been ignored, Cllr Rita McInerney (FF) claimed. “There are four schools in our parish, three come under the fifty mark and are not getting the service,” she explained. The procurement documents have been “quite laborious and lengthy” and the timescale to complete them :is very short because people have to get food in, the schools have to try get a local supplier and price accordingly”. She called it “regulation gone mad”. The Doonbeg business owner added, “From my mind the teacher or SNA who has traditionally heated up the food and given it out, all you need to do is an online handling course, they are basic and we do in our business all the time”.
Removal of certain schools in the area “erupted on the Wednesday before the schools reopened,” Cllr Michael Shannon (FF) recalled. “The Minister needs to take responsibility, the focus was to provide a hot meal to children in all schools, fifteen schools right back to the Peninsula are affected, hopefully it will be sorted in near future but I am alarmed at the lack of engagement to solve the issue because it is solvable, it is about common sense and by God there is a lot of common sense in our national schools because we were all reared there”.
