A Welfare Rights Specialist has welcomed the announcement by the Education Minister on Monday that families of children entitled to a free school meal will receive a school holiday food grant this summer.

Michelle McIlveen allocated £12.6million in funding for the scheme to help ease the pressure of the cost of living crisis over the school holidays and it is expected to ensure more than 100,000 children and young people will have access to healthy, nutritious food.

Samantha Gallagher (pictured), Welfare Rights Specialist at Community Advice Fermanagh said the grant will “aid some of our most vulnerable children this summer”.

“If we look at the criteria to make one eligible for free school meals, one must be on an income-related benefit or else be in receipt of Tax Credits with an annual income less than £16,190 or Universal Credit with annual income less than £14,000. So this will help a huge number of families.”

However, Samantha said this is just one issue among many during the cost of living crisis: “ There is serious underfunding in summer schemes and so, most schemes running this summer tend to come at a cost which most families who attend with us are unable to afford to pay.

“The amount of benefit awarded, be that via this scheme, or other benefits such as universal credit, have not risen in line with inflation, so aid being received is often not enough to live on for families. In addition, we see a serious rise in the numbers of working poor. It’s not a term I like to use, but if we were to take a family of two adults and two children, both parents working full time on the national living wage, they are not entitled to free school meals.

“They are also not entitled to this additional assistance over the summer months when they are most likely to need the financial help the most due to lack of childcare options.

“There is a serious lack of child care options in Fermanagh generally, especially over the summer and families are reliant on elderly parents for example to help.”

Samantha also added there was a growing concern in the working community about the lack of financial assistance coming from Stormont and “so while this is welcome news, there is much more required generally from them to address this cost of living crisis and [while] not everything can be introduced in the manner in which this scheme is able to, more substantial assistance requires a functioning Executive”.

The summer holiday food grant will run from July 1 to August 31. It will provide financial assistance to families whose children are entitled to a free school meal during term time and are eligible at the end of June 2022. Families will receive £13.50 per week for each entitled child.