News

On the 11th March, 2019, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone, announced the launch of the National Childcare Scheme along with its new website https://ncs.gov.ie/ See full Press Release here.

Details of the 2019 Capital Grants for Early Years and School Age Childcare Services are available here.

The Limerick Parenting Calendar, January to June 2019 has been collated through submissions from Parenting Limerick partners and other stakeholders. All programmes listed fulfil the function of supporting parents in their role as a parent.  It is available to download here. The purpose of collating the Limerick Parenting Calendar is to have a schedule of [...]

The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a model of supports designed to promote inclusion and to ensure that children with disabilities can meaningfully participate in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) free pre-school programme in mainstream pre-school settings.  AIM is a child-centred model, offering a range of universal and targeted supports. It offers [...]

On the 27th December, Minister Zappone signed the Childcare Support Act 2018 (Commencement) Order 2018 and the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) (Registration of School Age Services) Regulations 2018, enabling school age childcare services to register with Tusla. Once registered, school age childcare services will be able to participate in the forthcoming Affordable [...]

Minister Zappone has launched the Early Years Sector Profile Report 2017-2018, developed and published by Pobal for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA). The comprehensive findings are based on the largest ever survey of the early years sector, with responses from a total of 3,928 childcare services (88% of childcare facilities) providing significant [...]

We’re Breastfeeding Friendly is a campaign that aims to help improve the health and wellbeing of breastfeeding mothers, babies and their families by encouraging businesses, organisations and communities to become ‘Breastfeeding Friendly’. Participating organsiations must fulfill certain criteria. Breastfeeding must be acceptable in all areas of the premises open to the public. All staff members and [...]

This publication from Dublin City Childcare Committee is now available to download on our Parents page.

The Inspectorate at the Department of Education and Skills (DES) has published 'A Guide to Early Years Education Inspections (EYEI)' which outlines how they conduct inspections in early years settings and is effective from 1 September 2018.  Download the publication here.

Tusla Early Years Inspectorate is now publishing inspection reports on the Tusla website, and they are no longer available on the Pobal website. It is important to note that only Inspection Reports arising from inspection under the Childcare Act (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016, which commenced on 30th June 2016, will be published. In cases where a service has [...]