Free school meals: Families to get direct payments of £2.70 per child per day to ensure no child goes hungry

Minister Hargey confirmed that there will now be direct payments of £2.70 per child per day made every two weeks to the families of 97,000 children for each day their school is closed.

Minister Weir said the Education Authority would process grants for the vast majority of the 50,000 families receiving free school meals, but where their bank details are not known, families would be contacted by text message early next week, urging them to immediately complete an online form on the Education Authority website.

The move was part of a raft of fresh measures to help people announced by Ministers as they continue to introduce assistance for local people during the coronavirus outbreak.

Meanwhile the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health Richard Pengelly wrote to Health Trust chief executives to outline the next phase of preparations across the health service for an upsurge in Covid-19 cases.

Trusts have been asked to prioritise patient care, urgently discharge medically fit patients, reconfigure hospital services, maximise all spare capacity in residential, nursing and domiciliary care and end general hospital visits with only a few limited exceptions.