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03 Apr 2026
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03 Apr 2026
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Six additional primary schools across county Clare have been approved for the Hot School Meals Programme.
An additional 29,000 children across 168 schools will have access to nutritious hot meals for the new school year starting from this September.
The announcement by Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys TD means almost 2,200 primary schools across the country are now eligible to receive hot school meals, a total 345,000 pupils across Ireland.
In county Clare, primary school pupils across a total of 39 schools are now eligible to receive a hot school meal every day.
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Announcing the expansion, Minister Humphreys said her ambition now "is to finish the job as part of this year’s Budget and ensure that every primary school in Ireland is providing hot school meals in 2025".
“I firmly believe the roll-out of hot school meals to every primary school in the country will be one of the lasting legacies of this Government.”
The Hot School Meals Programme was introduced as a small pilot of 30 schools in 2019, and was further rolled out across primary schools in December 2023.
The Department of Social Protection provides the funding to schools for the School Meals Programme, and it is the responsibility of schools to choose their supplier in an open, fair and transparent manner in accordance with national legislation and EU directives on procurement.
The Department of Social Protection will now write to each of the 168 schools to advise them on the next steps in this regard to allow schools time to prepare so that their pupils will be able to avail of Hot School Meals from September 2024.
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