🇮🇪 Dublin · Schools
Schooling and childcare in Dublin
Free state education from primary to Leaving Certificate, mostly under religious patronage, allocated by each school's own admissions policy — and childcare costs more than school ever will.
The thing people get wrongDublin primary schools admit on their own published criteria, with siblings and catchment typically first, and popular schools take names years in advance. Applying when you arrive is often applying too late for the school nearest to you.
Indicative figures
- State schoolFreeVoluntary contribution and uniform costs apply.
- Fee-paying secondary€5,000 – €9,000/yearDay pupils; boarding is higher.
- Full-time crèche, fee-cappedUp to €734/monthPer child, 45 hours a week, in a service in the fee-cap scheme, from September 2026.
- NCS universal subsidy€2.14/hourUp to 45 hours a week, applied by the provider.
Checked . Ranges, not quotes — your Insider confirms the current numbers in Dublin before you commit to anything.
How admission works
Almost all primary and secondary schools are state-funded, free, and run by a patron body — historically the Catholic Church for the great majority of primary schools, alongside Educate Together and Community National Schools which are multi-denominational, and Gaelscoileanna which teach through Irish. Every school must publish an admissions policy setting out how it selects when oversubscribed; religion can no longer be used to prioritise entry to most primary schools. Applications go directly to each school, not through a central system, so you apply to several.
- Apply directly to each school, and to more than one; there is no central allocation.
- Oversubscription criteria are published — read them before choosing a neighbourhood.
- Gaelscoileanna teach the entire curriculum through Irish and are popular and oversubscribed.
The structure
Primary school runs eight years from junior infants, with children usually starting between four and five. Secondary covers a three-year Junior Cycle, an optional Transition Year, and two years leading to the Leaving Certificate, whose results convert into points for the CAO university application system. Transition Year is a genuinely useful and distinctively Irish feature — a year of work experience, projects and travel with no state examination.
What free actually costs
Tuition is free but schools request a voluntary contribution, and uniforms, sports gear, technology levies and trips add up. Schoolbooks are provided free at primary and post-primary level under a state scheme, which removed one of the larger annual costs. Fee-paying secondary schools exist in Dublin and are numerous by international standards, though they still receive state funding for teacher salaries, which is why fees are far lower than at a comparable international school.
- Voluntary contributions are requested annually and are not compulsory.
- The free schoolbooks scheme covers primary and post-primary.
- Fee-paying Irish secondary schools sit well below international school prices.
Childcare
Dublin childcare is scarce, with waiting lists at good crèches running to a year or more, and people registering during pregnancy. Price matters less than it did: services in the state's Core Funding scheme work under maximum fee caps, and the National Childcare Scheme then takes a universal subsidy of €2.14 an hour, up to 45 hours a week, off the bill, with a larger income-assessed subsidy for lower earners. Two free preschool years under the ECCE scheme cover most children from around age three.
- Register with crèches early — waiting lists are the binding constraint, not price.
- Apply for the National Childcare Scheme through ncs.gov.ie with MyGovID; the provider deducts it from fees.
- From September 2026 a full-time, 45-hour place in a service in the fee-cap scheme is capped at €734 a month per child; ask each crèche whether it is in the scheme and what you will actually pay after the subsidy.
- ECCE gives two free preschool years, on term-time hours only.