For journalists

Every figure on this page is counted from the published Tusla reports we read, and can be recomputed from the pages of this site.

The release we send to newsrooms is published here too, dated and quotable: press release of 2026-09-11.

The figure

57.8 % of Irish early years services (2,510 of 4,346) had at least one non-compliance in the most recent inspection report we could read. No creche is required to tell parents what its last inspection found: Tusla publishes every report, but as PDFs of a dozen pages, with no page per service.

The other counts

• 4,400 registered services covered, in 26 counties.
• 7,666 inspections listed; 4,346 services have at least one report we read in full.
• 826 immediate action notices — the inspector requiring something be fixed at once.
• 4 services carry conditions attached to their registration.
• Most frequent findings: Regulation 23 — Safeguarding Health, Safety and Welfare of Child (1,979), Regulation 9 — Management and Recruitment (1,137), Regulation 29 — Premises (397).

How it was counted

One service counts once, on its latest report we read — not on its history, which would penalise the services inspected most often. An inspection records one day. Each inspection is a record of what inspectors found on the day of the visit. Where a regulation was not met, the service is asked for a corrective and preventive action plan, which Tusla publishes with the report — we always show it next to the finding. A non-compliance is not a judgement on a service as a whole, and many are corrected within days. Read the full report before drawing a conclusion. The method, including what we do not say, is on Methodology.

People

We publish no personal data: no contact names, e-mail addresses or phone numbers, and no childminders (they are individuals working from home). Service names that contain the name of the contact person are withheld.

Using these figures

They may be quoted freely, with the source named: Source: Child and Family Agency (Tusla), Early Years Inspectorate — register of early years services and published inspection reports, re-used under the PSI Licence. Our copy as of 2026-09-11. Per-county or per-regulation breakdowns are on the county and regulation pages; a machine-readable copy is described on Datasets.

Contact

Yannick Schweizer — publisher. Questions, a figure to check before publication, or a breakdown you need: use the contact form. This site is independent and not affiliated with Tusla.