Universal Free School meals

Studies support this idea.

Concerns about adverse outcomes on student BMI were not supported by the literature; in fact, several studies detected a potentially protective effect of universal free school meals on BMI. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8000006/

Makes perfect sense.

Give them proper foods, like protein, veg and the kids will eat less sugar and crap.

My kids both get lunches in their school and have done since last year. The school is in a small rural village in the midlands but there are 300 or so pupils. While there are some kids that are having difficult upbringings, the area is by no stretch of the imagination deprived.

I'm a bit perplexed by it tbh. I can understand having it in lower socio-economic regions but tbh, I think its a bit of a waste of money and what's been spent on it would be much better spent on school facilities, educational supports for kids with learning difficulties etc.

I guess it comes down to how well you do it really.

Just dumping out any old crap from a school cafeteria, would probably be a waste of tax money. And in this country, I would be worried that without strong controls put in place that's exactly what would happen in many areas. And you will get kids who are practically allergic to the sight of a piece of lettuce, so there will be some push back. Variety of choice would be important. Doing all of that inside a budget isn't easy, but it's not an impossible goal either.

Nope, because they always eat their lunches in the class room anyway, regardless of whether the school provides it or when we did.

Not everyone is on welfare. Correct.

But everyone with kids gets child benefit. This should be garnished, by say €10 a week to pay for the scheme. Everyone wins. Taxpayer pays less. Child benefit goes where it should go, to the child.

Yes, if kids are being neglected, remove them from the parents that are neglecting them. Seems fairly obvious, no? And every teacher in Ireland is a mandated person who has a duty, through Children First, to report on any knowledge, belief or reasonable grounds of a child being neglected to TUSLA.

We aren’t in old Catholic Ireland any more, so mother and baby homes mean absolutely nothing these days. Ban surrogacy and have children adopted by families that actually want them, rather than see them as a cash cow.

How healthy is the stuff being offered? In principle I like the idea, however, i asked my niece what she had for lunch as her school recently started the scheme, She got a chicken fillet similar to what you'd get at a deli, cubed potato, and a bread roll. She didn't have any veg or fruit. I am all for providing healthy meals to kids as the benefits make the price worth it imo, but if it's just going to be deli style or airplane type food then I'd say it's a bit of a waste of money.

Yes, if kids are being neglected, remove them from the parents that are neglecting them. Seems fairly obvious, no? And every teacher in Ireland is a mandated person who has a duty, through Children First, to report on any knowledge, belief or reasonable grounds of a child being neglected to TUSLA.

So let me get this straight, you and @Mrs OBumble would advocate removing kids from parents who don't provide their kids with a proper lunch, as that is neglect, in your eyes.

So let's dig into this.

A study from UCG showed that approximately 16% of children go to school hungry.

https://www.universityofgalway.ie/media/healthpromotionresearchcentre/hbscdocs/factsheets/fs_13_2006_july09.pdf

I guess their parents neglect them.

There are approx 550,000 children going to primary school in Ireland.

16% is 88,000 children we will need to whip away from their parents and put them… somewhere under the care of the state or some other NGO or institution like the Catholic Church.

As I said, ye would love to get the nuns and priests back to sort out these issues.

Of course, your argument is both ridiculous and preposterous and reeks of an overdone sense of snobbery and morality.

I'd be more inclined to take kids off parents who don't send them to school of which there are a lot

Placing the children elsewhere should be a last step, if the parents absolutely refuse to provide at least basically adequate care.

But some parents clearly need some intensive support to get the basics in place: food, clean clothing, adequate shelter, enough sleep, supervision and emotional support.

Free food at school only starts to address one of those, and ignores yhe rest. So children continue to be neglected / abused.

And if intensive support shames the parents-tough. It's the kids I'm concerned about,not the parents egos.

This is based pretty much on comments from social worker friends: hunger drives kids to ask for help. Feeding them outside the home makes it a lot harder to identify who needs help.

Ate you satisfied that parents are sending their children to school hungry? 16% , that is outrageous. That sounds like a huge volume of people who can't be trusted to be parents.

You're ignoring a huge problem, because you don't like an extreme solution that posted has suggested. That shouldn't cover up the fact that there are parents sending their kids to school hungry, what kind of parent does that?

40+ years ago in England, they supplied school lunches, in schools with Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc. There were no issues.

I'm sure they did but that wasn't my point. When you serve just one kind of meal, meat and veg as in the post I was replying to, you can't cater for everyone.

This would make sense other than the fact that there are hungry kids today.

If feeding them in schools is somehow hiding the fact that they are hungry, then surely its common knowledge today who the hungry kids are? So why do we still have hungry kids? Why is nothing being done?

I never said you had an issue.