​What the 2026 New Core Funding Fee Caps Mean for Childcare Providers

From September, the maximum fee a Core Funding Partner Service can charge drops again. Minister Norma Foley's announcement of Core Funding Year 5 on the 3rd of June set out the new caps and a record €480 million in funding; a fortnight later, The Irish Times reported that fee compliance is finally moving from a complaints process to active review. Here's what both mean for your service.

What's changing this September

Under Year 5, the maximum weekly fee for a typical full time place (45 hours) falls from around €295 to €280, leaving parents a co-payment of no more than €183.70 once the highest National Childcare Scheme universal subsidy is applied. Every band moves down by a similar margin, from under 10 hours right through to 50+ hours.

Around 12% of services will need to reduce at least one fee to comply. Most providers already charge below the new maximums, so day to day billing won't change for them, but every service still needs to be able to show which band applies to which child, on which hours, and back that up if asked.

The State's side of the deal is growing too. Core Funding rises from €390 million to €480 million, a 23% increase, including up to €45 million ring fenced for pay improvements for early years educators and school age childcare practitioners, subject to negotiation at the Joint Labour Committee.

"Affordable early learning and childcare is essential to supporting families and improving outcomes for children. The new maximum fees will ensure more parents benefit from lower costs, while the additional funding will support providers in continuing to deliver high-quality services."
— Minister Norma Foley, 3 June 2026

Compliance is moving from complaint driven to active

Core Funding has carried fee management conditions since 2022, but enforcement has largely relied on parents noticing and raising it themselves, typically through their local Childcare Committee (CCC). The Irish Times' recent editorial on the sector points out there's been no systemic monitoring of compliance in that time.

That's set to change. From this Autumn, providers can expect closer monitoring of their fees on the ground, building on the National Fee Review Team process the Department already runs for individual complaints, and channelled through the same local CCC network that has always handled fee queries. Whether media reports describe this as "local authorities checking fees" or the CCC-led process gov.ie directs people to, the practical outcome for providers is the same... fee records need to hold up to scrutiny, not just be technically correct on paper.

The wider backdrop adds pressure of its own. The same editorial describes a sector consolidating toward fewer, larger operators, staff considering industrial action over pay, some larger providers weighing whether to leave Core Funding rather than absorb the new caps, and a nationally cited shortfall of roughly 40,000 places. Childcare is shaping up to be one of the harder conversations in Budget 2027.

What this means day to day for SAC providers

The numbers themselves are rarely the hard part. The harder part is proving, child by child and week by week, that what's charged lines up with the correct band, and that gets more complicated as hours shift for part-time and sessional places, as Universal and Income Assessed NCS subsidies both need reconciling against the right band, and as admin time stays tight across the sector.

It's harder again for before and afterschool or holiday clubs who operate at scale, where fee logic has to be applied the same way everywhere, not just wherever the owner happens to check most often. A spreadsheet, or booking software that wasn't built around Ireland's fee bands, can drift out of alignment quietly, not through any intent to overcharge, just because hours change and nobody re-checks the band that week.

Keeping Core Funding Caps and NCS in one place

This is the operational detail Enrolmy was built to handle for SAC providers: fee bands, booking hours and NCS reconciliation sitting in the same system, not tracked separately by hand. Core Funding Cap management runs alongside NCS subsidy reconciliation, so the band a family is charged always reflects the hours they've actually booked, with a clear record to show for it.

If Core Funding Year 5 has you double-checking how confident you'd feel showing your fee records to your CCC tomorrow, our Irish team is happy to talk it through. Book a demo and we'll show you how it works for a setting your size.

Sources used:

Dept. of Children, Disability and Equality press release, 3 June 2026: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-children-disability-and-equality/press-releases/minister-foley-announces-details-of-maximum-fee-caps-alongside-over-480-million-for-core-funding-year-5/

Core Funding Fee Management Conditions, gov.ie: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-children-disability-and-equality/publications/core-funding-fee-management-conditions/

How to Request a Fee Review for Potential Breaches, gov.ie (confirms local CCC as first point of contact): https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-children-disability-and-equality/publications/how-to-request-a-fee-review-for-potential-breaches-in-fee-management-conditions/

The Irish Times, "The Irish Times view on childcare: a crunch issue for Budget 2027," 28 July 2026: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorials/2026/07/28/the-irish-times-view-on-childcare-a-crunch-issue-for-budget-2027/