Today is International School Meals Day. Education support workers and teachers believe every child and young person should be able to access nutritious meals at school.
Since our 2022 delegate conference, it has been NIC-ICTU’s policy to support young people and their families’ budgets with high-quality free school meals for all as a universal right.
“Conference agrees that the campaign to address the cost-of-living crisis must support both structural interventions to improve collective bargaining coverage, eliminate precarious work, fully implement the real Living Wage, provide affordable, accessible childcare for all and introduce universal, free school meals; and immediate interventions to address the huge pressures people face in relation to the cost of energy, fuel and food, including through supporting much needed interventions for those who rely on the welfare and social security systems.”
Speaking on behalf of NIC-ICTU, its Assistant General Secretary (and former teacher) Gerry Murphy said
We support the calls today from Advice NI, the Women’s Support Network, Feeding Britain and all education unions who argue that the NI the Executive now make the eradication of child poverty a cross-departmental priority and we believe that a universal offering of Free School Meals is a key step to achieving this. In this context, we note ministers’ collective obligations to develop, implement and deliver an effective Anti-Poverty Strategy, and we believe that a universal offering of Free School Meals would represent a practical and meaningful policy measure aligned with those commitments.
We also welcome the Education Minister Paul Given’s commitment to link future income threshold increases to inflation to ensure that support keeps pace with the rising cost of living. While we recognise the Department’s challenging budget position, we note that these measures, will only partially address the gap in support for many working families who continue to struggle with food insecurity. We would therefore encourage continued consideration of phased steps towards a universal model.
