National Childcare Scheme

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) is a new scheme that provides financial support to help parents to meet the costs of childcare.

The NCS will replace all existing targeted childcare support programmes and the current universal childcare subsidy by 2021. It gives financial support towards the cost of childcare for the hours spent outside of pre-school or school.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme provides early childhood care and education for pre-school children. It will not be affected by the NCS and will continue to operate alongside the NCS.

The National Childcare Scheme provides 2 types of childcare subsidy for children over 6 months of age - a universal subsidy for children under 3 which is not means tested and an income assessed subsidy for children up to 15 which is means-tested.

Your child must be attending a childcare provider who is registered with Tusla (including childminders and school-age childcare services) and has a National Childcare Scheme contract with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

Subsidies are paid directly to your childcare provider, however you must apply for the subsidy yourself. Your provider then subtracts your subsidy from your childcare bill.

You can apply online and by paper application – see ‘How to apply’ below.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) is responsible for NCS policy, legislation and oversight but day-to-day management of the scheme is carried out by Pobal (the scheme administrator).

How to apply

You can apply online at https://ncs.gov.ie/en/