23/07/2026
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URGENT – DON’T BLAME THE PROVIDERS!
PARENTS, TDS SENTORS AND GENERAL PUBLIC:
Today 23rd July 2026 Pobal on behalf of the Department ran out training presentations in relation to a new requirement for registering CHICKS (the subsidies parents get towards their costs) on the HIVE. This will mean a major increase in the already over-burdened administration work on providers and staff.This will be mandatory for providers on the 31st July when registering or editing any CHICKS. The second training presentation will be run out on the 30th July at 2.30pm less than 24 hours before it becomes mandatory for providers to complete this new additional work.
This is basically a data collection exercise, and data which is already in the possession of the department/Pobal! We are just warning parents that due to this very unnecessary task providers may find it difficult to get CHICKS registered due to lack of clarification, training or indeed the system not working. If CHICKS cannot be registered then parents will have to pay full fees to their provider to enable the services continue to function. Please remember subsidies are attached to the parent and not the service. Providers across the state facilitate registering these CHICKS for parents with no funding to do so, our job as childcare providers is to provide quality services for the children in our care and NOT administer schemes for the Government. The total dis-respect for the providers and staff has hit a new level.
So please don’t blame providers if you have to pay full fees to a service if your CHICK cannot be registered.
While we are on the clarification end of things...could the department also explain to the general public and hard pressed providers how in a Expression of Interest document issued in relation to one of new State-Led Early Learning and Care Capital Programme their “fee does not exceed €230/week for full-time provision.”
This State-Led facility will have little or no rent, no rates, little or no loans as fit out also included, not for profit but can have a small surplus of approximately 3%! Many services who are signed into Core Funding across the State are on a fee freeze and well below this figure with all the above expenses to cover. No wonder small to medium size services are closing and parents are crying out for childcare.
An application process was to open last year to let providers on very low fees apply to increase their fees to be sustainable this did not happen. The fees charged by providers varies hugely across the country - this is never discussed when fees for parents are being flagged as being 'mortgages'. There are a lot of parents who pay very low fees and rightly so.
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