The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman TD, is pleased to announce a programme of further supports in the form of the December 2021 Covid Response Programme for Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare. The Minister has secured €10 million to support services improve indoor ventilation and provide mobile HEPA air filtration systems.

Applications will be open from the 16th of December 2021 to the 7th of January 2022.  Applications cannot be submitted outside this application window. All applications must be submitted on the HIVE.

The amount of grant which is paid to each Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare Service is based on the number of individual children registered in a service on one or more DCEDIY programmes on the 24th November 2021.  The number of individual children registered will be taken from Early Years Portal and PIP systems hosted by Pobal.

To be eligible for funding, you must have had at least one registered child on one of the following schemes on the 24th of November 2021:

• National Childcare Scheme (NCS)
• Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
• Community Childcare Subvention Programme Plus (CCSP)

Payment of the grant

Payments to approved applicants will commence from the 24th of December and will occur weekly thereafter. Applicants will be paid 100% of their grant allocation, and will receive their payment within 10 working days of submitting their application.

The amount of funding each service is allocated under Grant Programme for Improved Ventilation and Outdoor Play 2021 is as follows:

Further information

For further information on the programme rules and how to apply for this grant please read the applicant guidelines, which is also available on Useful Links.

For a Step by Step guide on how to complete the application on HIVE please read the technical guidelines, which is also available on Useful Links.

If you require any further clarifications or information, please raise a Service Request in HIVE using the following categories as appropriate:

• Programme: Covid 19 Supports
• Request Type: Ventilation
• Request Type Details: General