The National Childcare Scheme

The National Childcare Scheme will provide financial support for parents towards the cost of childcare. It will provide a system from which both universal and targeted subsidies can be provided towards the cost of childcare. This new scheme will replace the existing targeted childcare programmes with a single, streamlined and more user-friendly scheme and will include “wraparound‟ care for pre-school and school-age children.

ECCE Scheme

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme is a universal two-year pre-school programme available to all children within the eligible age rangeIt provides children with their first formal experience of early learning prior to commencing primary school. The programme is provided for three hours per day, five days per week over 38 weeks per year and the programme runs from September to June each year.