As you will be aware, applications for the Core Funding Scheme 2026/27 opened on 8 June and many providers have already contracted for the scheme for the coming programme year, with applications rates for this year on par with previous years.

In contracting for the scheme, some providers have sought clarification on the additional €45 million in ringfenced funding allocated to Core Funding in year 5 of the scheme, i.e. the Staff Funding Annual Contribution 2 (SFAC 2) – both the value of the SFAC2 for individual providers and the timeline for release.

The Department and the Minister have always made clear that the €45 million in available funding through the SFAC 2 is specifically ringfenced for supporting Partner Service with the cost of increasing pay that may arise from an updated Employment Regulation Order.

Please be aware, the SFAC2 allocation is currently not included in the Core Funding allocation generated as part of the current application process.

It can, however, be calculated using the following formula, with an hourly rate of up to €1:

Minimum Annual Staffing Hours multiplied by the SFAC2 hourly rate.

As communicated previously, the SFAC2 funding will be released once new Employment Regulation Orders are established, or on 1 September 2026, whichever is later. However, the Department is aware that no updated Joint Labour Committee (JLC) proposals have been negotiated currently.

Therefore, regrettably, at this point in time, no SFAC 2 funding can be dispersed as part of Core Funding allocations. In line with public expenditure rules and regulations, unused funding will be returned to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation therefore the SFAC 2 will not be eligible for backdating.

However, if an agreement can be reached through the independent JLC process, SFAC 2 funding can and will be dispersed as soon as the relevant Employment Regulation Orders are established as the functionality is available within HIVE. Please also be aware that SFAC 1 funding will still issue as normal.

As the JLC process is independent of the Department, for information on the process, please contact your appropriate representative organisation.  The current member organisations of the JLC are Childcare Services Ireland and The Federation of Early Childhood Providers as the representative bodies for employers and SIPTU as the representative body for employees.

For information on other updates please review our What’s new for Partner Services in Core Funding Year 5 document at the link here  core-funding-2026-2027-overview-of-changes-for-providers-year-5-final.pdf

Join Better Start for a series of online mentoring sessions.

Aistear in Practice is a series of online mentoring sessions developed by Better Start to support reflection on practice linked to Aistear, with a focus on quality inclusive experiences for all children.

The August–September 2026 series will include three online mentoring topics: Aistear in Practice: The Key Person Approach; Aistear in Practice: Babies, Toddlers and Young Children’s Schemas; and Aistear in Practice: Emergent and Inquiry-Based Curriculum.

All sessions take place online via Microsoft Teams. Time: 2.30pm to 4pm.

Click here to register

Regards,

The Early Years Team.

Thank you to all who attended the new National Childcare Scheme (NCS) mandatory co-payment functionality webinar on 23 July 2026.

The recorded webinar is now available here.

There is also a copy of the presentation available here.

Two additional online training demonstrations will be held online on the following dates.

*Matching content will be delivered in each session

Further to the recording of yesterday’s webinar, there will be additional resources to support you with submitting NCS claims when the new co-payment functionality is implemented. These resources will be circulated next week.

Your local City/County Childcare Committee (CCC) will be available to assist. You can find information on your local CCC here. The Early Years Provider Centre (EYPC) will also be on hand to offer any practical support that may be needed.

For EYPC support when the new co-payment functionality goes live, you can raise a request on the Early Years Hive using the following categories:

• Programme: NCS
• Request Type: Registrations
• Request Type Details: Claim
• Summary: Co-payment functionality

Please see the below statement from the Department of Children, Equality and Disability.

Statement from DCDE on new NCS Co-payment Functionality

Dear Service Provider,

We are writing to you in relation to the upcoming change in how NCS claims data will be collected, from 31 July 2026.

The purpose of this change is to collect fee information at child-level, which will allow the Department have a deeper understanding of how much parents are paying after deductions and subsidies, and the impact of the National Childcare Scheme on affordability.

To achieve this, new mandatory fields will be added to the NCS claims section of the Early Years Hive. When setting up a new or updating an existing claim, you can:

• Select a fee type from your active fee table, or
• If a child’s attendance pattern is not reflected in your fee table, enter:

-the number of hours and minutes being paid for, and the fee charged for those hours and minutes before any subsidies or discounts are applied.

The system will then automatically calculate and display a parent’s weekly co-payment amount.

This information is vital in order for the Department to understand how the NCS is contributing to delivering the Programme for Government commitment that parents will pay no more than €200 per month for early learning and childcare.

This process has been designed to try to minimise the number of additional steps required of providers, using information providers are already using to calculate co-payment amounts, and to allow providers to export and use the data.

Several features have been included to make the process easier:

• Co-payment information can be exported as a PDF or as a CSV file, for sharing with parents or use for invoicing.
• Multiple claim weeks can be edited at the same time, to deal with different fee types and claims in and out of term.
• For ECCE children, an ECCE subsidy can be applied to ECCE payable weeks based on your ECCE calendar.
• Future NCS subsidy uplifts will automatically update affected claims, reducing the need for manual calculations.

The co-payment information will not be used for Pobal compliance, and there will be no requirement to print out or save the information unless it is useful for you to do so. This change has no effect on attendance rules.

For claims submitted before 31 July 2026, there is no requirement for these claims to be retrospectively updated with co-payment information.

We recognise that these changes introduce additional data entry requirements, however this will provide evidence that is critical to enable future policy change.

Thank You,

Department of Children, Equality and Disability

You and your staff are invited to attend online training on the new co-payment functionality to be incorporated into the NCS claim process, which is due to be available on 31 July 2026. The training is intended to provide you with a detailed overview of the new functionality.

The training will take place on Thursday 30 July 2026 from 2.30pm to 3.30pm.

As mentioned in programme readiness training, the new functionality will be mandatory for completion for all newly created and edited claim from 31 July 2026.

Click here to register for the training on at 2.30pm on Thursday 30 July 2026

The training will cover the following:

• Important upcoming dates
• The updated NCS claim pathway
• An overview of the new co-payment functionality
• New validations
• New co-payment print outs
• Helpful tips
• Early Years Hive demonstrations

A recording of the training, a copy of the presentation and the webinar Q&A will be made available on the Early Years Hive on 24 July 2026.

Regards,
The Early Years Team

For those that have already submitted an AIM Level 7 Standard Application for 2025/2026 and wish to avail of Non-Term support, please submit any AIM Non-Term applications for the summer period before 14 August 2026.

Submitting your application by this date will help us ensure they can be processed before the redesigned AIM Level 7 application process opens for the 2026/2027 programme call, which will become available on the Early Years Hive.

We appreciate your support as we introduce improvements to make the AIM application process more streamlined for service providers.

We encourage all service providers to review and submit any outstanding AIM Non-Term applications by this date.

Contact us  

If you have any queries regarding the AIM programme, please contact the Early Years Provider Centre (EYPC) by raising a request on Hive using the following categories:

• Programme: Select the relevant AIM level
• Request Type: Application
• Request Type Detail: How To

Regards,

The Early Years Team

The information below explains what your AIM notification means and how to understand the support approved for a child.

This part of the notification tells you which support level has been allocated to a child:

This part of the notification gives additional information on what each level of support means. However, only one level will apply to your child as identified in the text box above.

Review Functionality:

There is currently no review functionality available for 2026/2027 applications. Please continue to monitor the Early Years Hive over the coming weeks for further updates.

Resources:

Guidance materials on the support levels awarded, along with common practical examples are available on The Early Years Hive here. Guidance on submitting an AIM Level 4 application can be found here and a Frequently Asked Questions Document is available here.

Contact us  

If you have any queries regarding the AIM programme, please contact the Early Years Provider Centre (EYPC) by raising a request on Hive using the following categories:

• Programme: Select the relevant AIM level
• Request Type: Application
• Request Type Detail: How To

Please continue to monitor the Early Years Hive, further information will be shared over the coming weeks.

Regards,
The Early Years Team