Primary schools across the country are distributing food vouchers and taking other measures in attempts to help struggling families feed their children over the Christmas break and keep them warm.
Acutely conscious of the additional pressures many families are facing this Christmas, they have turned to charities and local businesses to find funds to support their effort.
The Children's Rights Alliance says it was "inundated" when it sent out word to schools recently via the Irish National Teachers' Organisation that it had funds to distribute.
However the alliance was only able to help a small number of the schools that contacted them.
A Limerick primary school is among those fortunate enough to receive funding from the organisation.
It is distributing food vouchers to help families feed their children over the Christmas break.
The school, which serves a severely disadvantaged part of the city, is providing a €50 supermarket voucher for every pupil as well as a voucher worth €35 for the local butchers.
"The children have two weeks off and that's going to have a huge knock-on effect on family budgets", the principal told RTÉ News.
As well as receiving breakfast before they start lessons, like many other schools in disadvantaged areas it also provides children with a mid-morning snack and a hot meal at lunchtime.
But all that is gone over the Christmas break.
"There is a huge amount of poverty and food prices have gone through the roof. If a child is at home all day then that's an extra mouth to feed," the principal said.
It’s not just food that families are struggling with, it’s the cold too. Recently the school received a donation of coal from a local business.
"We had 40 bags of coal delivered to the school and parents bit the hand off us to get it," the principal said.
"We have an excellent relationship with our parents and they know that they can come to us in privacy to ask for help," the principal added.
The school regularly delivers food parcels to the many needy families that it serves and it delivers them discretely.
For that same reason - out of respect to the families it serves - the school does not wish to be named in this article.
"Our families are under serious pressure. They are already struggling to put food on the table, to put the heating on," the principal said.
The principal explains that now, on top of all that, families are desperately trying to come up with savings which will enable them to buy things like gifts for their children, so that they can enjoy Christmas like any other child.
Every single pupil will receive both vouchers, irrespective of what their own individual family circumstances may be.
"There is huge deprivation within this school, some of it is hidden, and I don't think it would be right for me to try and decide who has the greatest need."
CEO of the Children's Rights Alliance Tanya Ward says the organisation was greatly taken aback by the number of schools who applied for help, and by the stories they told.
"One school told us that they were so worried about the children that they had already contacted a local supermarket looking for free food," Ms Ward said.
Describing the extreme hardship that families can find themselves under during the Christmas period – a time then children are supposed to be at the centre and the heart of the celebrations – she explained how hunger directly contributes to the stress experienced by both parents and children and how it can have a far-reaching impact on the emotional development of a child.
"When children are hungry it makes them feel unloved. Parents are often going without food themselves and that adds to their own stress," she said.
"Children are very aware of what their parents are going through and don’t want to put any more pressure on their parents," she added.
This often means that they will limit their requests for gifts, including gifts from Santa.
This has a knock-on effect.
"They don't go out, they don't socialise, they self-isolate because they don't want others to know about their family's poverty," Ms Ward said.
"All this has a big effect on their self-confidence and how they value themselves," she added.
The Children's Rights Alliance has appealed to the Government to take action so that no child goes to bed hungry during holidays from school.
The charity wants long-term mechanisms established so that the vital nourishment that schools provide to children during term-time is continued over the summer months and during other holiday periods.
