ECCE Preschool Scheme

If your child was born between 1st Jan and 31 December and is age 2 year 8 months before September start date, your child will qualify for the ECCE preschool scheme. This scheme runs for 38 weeks in the ECCE calendar year, 5 days a week for 3 hours per day (9am-12pm). In order to register children for the scheme, Bee Happy Childcare will require your child’s full name, pps number and date of birth. Once registered, we will deduct the ECCE preschool grant off your fees. You can call us by phone 093-23375 to register for the ECCE scheme.                         

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National Childcare Scheme (NCS)

All children aged from 2 years, will need to register for the NCS scheme in order to avail of childcare fee subsidies.

All families are entitled to a minimum €2.14 of a subsidy per hour per child from September 2024.

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How to apply:

The easiest and fastest way to apply is online at https://ncs.gov.ie/en/

You will need:

• A verified MyGovID account*

• Your children’s information such as date of birth and PPSN

• You/your partner employment and income related details for income assessed subsidy if the household net income is under €60,000. Otherwise you should apply for the Universal subsidy

• Your partner’s PPSN, employment and income related details (if you are a member of a couple)

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*  To obtain this you need a basic MyGovID account and a Public Service Card with a verified mobile phone number. 

For full instructions, please go to https://www.ncs.gov.ie/en/how-to-apply/

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If you or your partner don’t already have a Public Services Card you will need to apply by post. To do so, please contact the Parent Support Centre on 01 906 8530, Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. These applications will take longer to process and may affect the start date of the subsidy payment.

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When your application has been approved, you will receive an NCS award for each child, containing their unique CHICK code (Childcare Identifier Code Key) and details of rate & number of eligible hours. You will need to share this with us so that we can register your child on the NCS portal (called HIVE) and enter the number of hours that your child attends.

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After you receive your CHICK code please send this CHICK code to Bee Happy Childcare email address, beehappycreche@gmail.com

After Bee Happy Childcare registers your child and the hours, you will receive a notification from the government’s HIVE registration system asking you to confirm that the details entered are correct. Once you send your confirmation, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs will pay the subsidy to us on your behalf, and we will, in turn, subtract this amount from your weekly fee. If you do not validate our registration on the HIVE Portal we cannot deduct the subsidy from your fees.

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If you would like to know more about how you might avail of a childcare place under any of these government schemes, please contact us at 093-23375 or email us at beehappycreche@gmail.com and we will be happy to assist you.

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