Donna Kirk, a mum of three from Newry, questioned why the support “is available only for the 10 months” of the year with “nothing happening” in the other two months.
Ms Kirk’s children avail of free school meals during term time. She said she often struggled to provide additional meals at home.
“When my kids are at school at least I know they have that one main meal that meets their nutritional value,” she added.
“Healthy food is so much more expensive, it’s not affordable”
She also works as a part time catering assistant across several schools and said staff were helping feed children out of their own pockets during term time.
“We’ve had classroom assistants that are bringing in food, breadsticks, snacks, lots of things under their desks to give to children throughout the day because they know they are hungry.
“We can see that children that are coming up to the dinner hatches…we know they need that bit extra.”
She said on two occasions she had witnessed pupils consume so much food “they made themselves sick”.
“It’s within them to know ‘well I’m not going to get anything later so let’s fill my body up now’.”
