STATUTORY REGULATIONS 

The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has responsibility for  Regulations and for developing policy in the Early Years sector while the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) is charged with ensuring the health, safety and welfare of pre-school children attending Childminding services through regular inspections.

Under the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016 and The Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services)(Amendments) Regulations 2016 a registered childminder can care for up to 5 preschool children, including his/her own children. A childminder can have no more than 2 children less than 15 months old in their care. Exceptions include if the minded children come from the one family, the children are related to the childminder or their spouse or the children are the childminders own children.

Please click here to access the Tusla’s Frequently Asked Questions.

WHO IS OBLIGED TO REGISTER WITH TUSLA?
• Childminders who wish to care for 4 or more preschool children (only preschool children)
• Childminders who wish to care for 7 or more school age children (only school age children)
• Childminders who care for a mix of preschool and school age children, i.e. if caring for 4 or
more preschool children and a small number of school age children or 7 or more school age
children and a small number of preschool children

If a Childminder wishes to register their service with Tusla, it is a legal requirement that they must apply at least 3 months in advance of minding 4 or more children. The registration process must be completed online.  

Once registered childminders are eligible to apply for Govenment Funded Schemes and Childminding Development Grants.

If you are interested in learning more about registering with Tusla please contact Carlow CCC, 059 9140244 or the Pre-school Inspector in your local Tusla Office. For more information, see New Registrations

Tusla’s Quality Regulatory Framework (QRF)

Tusla’s Early Years Inspectorate has published an Early Years Quality and Regulatory Framework , to help childcare services to comply with the Regulations. The QRF applies to all registered childminding services and is aimed to help and support registered Early Years Services including childminders to comply with the Childcare Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016. It sets out the Early Years Inspectorate’s interpretation of these regulations in a transparent way and presents the scope of how the inspectorate will assess services for compliance with these regulations which, in turn, will promote the quality and safety of services provided to children.

Compliance

Pobal on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY),  conducts compliance visits with each participating childcare service who provides one or more of the National Childcare Programmes including ECCE, CCSP, NCS which are available to registered childminders.

We advise services to maintain a compliance folder/file which can be made readily available to the visiting officer on arrival. This will ensure minimum disruption and speed up the compliance visit. We understand that some services file their records in other ways, but records must be available to enable the visiting officer to complete the compliance visit in a reasonable timescale.  

Carlow County Childcare Committee are available to support Childminding services in relation to statutory regulations, Contact eilish@carlowccc.ie or phone 059 9140244.