Westmeath students receive 11,004 school meals a day

A total of 11,004 hot school meals are provided each day to Westmeath students, according to figures from the Dept of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.

The issue of the school meals programme was recently brought up in the Dáil by Fianna Fail TD, Shay Brennan, who asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to provide a county breakdown of the numbers of students receiving a hot school meal every day.

In his reply, Minister Dara Calleary said that since September 2025 all 3,200 primary schools and 550,000 children are eligible for hot school meals: “Across all meal types, there are some 3,700 schools and 682,000 children eligible for support. This equates to the distribution of up to 3.4 million school meals per week,” he said.

The minister provided a table giving the breakdown of the number of children in receipt of hot school meals per day, by county for the 2025/26 academic year: “The 2026/27 academic school year started three weeks ago and applications are currently being processed,” the minister said.

There are a total of 451,512 hot school meals dished out each day, Dublin receives the highest on 92,105; Meath gets 20,793, Longford 4,726, Cavan 9,614, Roscommon 7,056, and Offaly 8,450.