Schooling and childcare in Dublin

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 expensive and scarce, with waiting lists at good crèches running to a year or more, and people registering during pregnancy. The National Childcare Scheme provides a subsidy applied directly to fees, with a universal element and an income-assessed element. Two free preschool years under the ECCE scheme cover most children from around age three, and are the point at which costs drop sharply.

• Register with crèches early — waiting lists are the binding constraint, not price.
• The National Childcare Scheme subsidy is applied by the provider, not claimed back.
• ECCE gives two free preschool years, on term-time hours only.