According to the Ministry of Education (DE), the financing of the “holiday hunger” payments this summer is not yet guaranteed.
Stormont Executive approval is required to provide £22million a year to enable the scheme to help around 98,000 children.
However, the Executive is not currently in session and the Assembly is not functioning.
A DE spokesman said the program’s continuation depended on “providing the necessary funds”.
Executive Ministers had previously agreed in November 2020 to pay for free school meals for eligible children in Northern Ireland during the school holidays.
Families were paid fortnightly £27 per child in lieu of school meals during the holidays.
However, according to the Department of Education, this funding only covered “school holiday periods, including the inter-holiday period between Christmas 2020 and Easter 2022”.
- Free school meals during the holidays until 2022
A draft budget had proposed extending the school holiday food grant in Northern Ireland until 2025 at a cost of £22million a year.
But the executive collapsed in February before a budget could be agreed for 2022-25.
The assembly is also in limbo after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) blocked the election of a speaker on Friday, meaning it cannot function.
The DUP said it took the action to send a “clear message” about its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Earlier this year, a senior department official said an agreement with management was needed to extend funding for holiday food payments beyond Easter 2022.
In the absence of an executive, Education Secretary Michelle McIlveen may be able to write to other ministers to get their approval to fund the program before the summer holidays begin at the end of June.
In February, Community Minister Deirdre Hargey said she would take a similar step to boost funding for sports stadiums after the executive branch collapsed.
When asked about the holiday starvation grant, a DE spokesman told BBC News NI he was considering how this could be taken forward.
According to the latest Department data, more than 98,800 children in Northern Ireland were entitled to free school meals in 2021/22 – around three in ten of all pupils.
Footballer Marcus Rashford had previously led a campaign for similar support for children during the holiday season in England.
Meanwhile, the Welsh Government plans to extend free school meals to all primary school children by September 2024.
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