Inclusion in early years is not a nice-to-have. It is a legal obligation, a professional commitment and above all a matter of basic fairness to every child and family who walks through your door. In 2026, with updated admissions policy requirements under Shaping the Future and an increasingly diverse Irish population, getting inclusion genuinely right has never mattered more.
What Inclusion Means Under Irish Law and Policy
Inclusion in early years is underpinned by several layers of Irish law and national policy:
- The Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2018 prohibit discrimination in service provision on nine grounds including disability, race, religion, family status and membership of the Traveller community
- The Disability Act 2005 requires service providers to make reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities
- The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), ratified by Ireland in 2018, enshrines the right to inclusive education under Article 24
- Shaping the Future, Ireland's Quality and Regulatory Framework for Early Learning and Care, sets out clear expectations around inclusive practice, admissions and equality of access that apply to all Core Funded services
Updated Admissions Policy Requirements Under Shaping the Future
As a condition of Core Funding participation, services must have a written admissions policy that:
- Is publicly available and provided to all families on request without delay
- Sets out clear, transparent and non-discriminatory criteria for how places are allocated
- Does not exclude children on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, religion, family status or any other protected ground under the Equal Status Acts
- Addresses how your service meets its reasonable accommodation obligations
- Is reviewed at least annually and updated whenever regulations or guidance change
Tusla inspectors will ask to see your admissions policy and will assess whether it is genuinely inclusive or whether it contains hidden barriers to access.
Reasonable Accommodation in Practice
Reasonable accommodation means making adjustments so that a child with a disability can access your service on an equal basis with other children. Practical examples include:
- Adapting the physical environment with ramps, accessible bathrooms and sensory spaces
- Adjusting routines to support a child who finds transitions particularly challenging
- Providing visual supports for a child with communication needs
- Applying for an AIM Support Worker for a child who needs one-to-one support to participate
- Engaging with therapeutic services to upskill the whole team
How to Support Diverse Families
- Display welcome signs and key setting vocabulary in the home languages of the families you serve
- Ensure books, dolls, puzzles and display materials reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of your children
- Provide key documents such as policies, consent forms and newsletters in plain English and, where possible, translated versions
- Be responsive and sensitive to cultural or religious practices around food, dress, prayer and celebration
- Ask families about their culture, traditions and hopes for their child and genuinely listen and respond
Staff Training Requirements for Inclusive Practice
An inclusive setting needs a trained team. In 2026, staff training in inclusion-related areas should include:
- AIM programme awareness and the application process
- Equality and diversity in early childhood
- Working with children with specific needs including autism, Down syndrome, sensory processing differences and communication difficulties
- Cultural competence and supporting multilingual children
- Anti-bias practice in early years settings
An Inclusive Environment Checklist for 2026
- Our admissions policy is written, reviewed within the last 12 months and available to all families
- Our physical environment is accessible for children with mobility needs or disability-related requirements
- We have visual supports readily available for children with communication needs
- Our books, resources and display materials reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of our children
- We welcome and actively support home languages in our setting environment
- Our Child Safeguarding Statement is current and includes all children in our care without exception
- All staff have completed training in inclusive practice within the last 12 months
- We have a clear documented process for identifying and applying for AIM supports when a child needs them
- We actively seek family input into how we can strengthen our inclusive practice on an ongoing basis
Early Years Shop, part of the Canavan Byrne brand, provides admissions policies, compliance resources and documentation tools to help Irish early years services meet their inclusion obligations with confidence in 2026.
Final Thoughts
Inclusion is not a destination. It is a direction. No setting is perfectly inclusive, and no setting should stop trying to be more inclusive than it is today. The question to ask is not whether you are inclusive but what you are doing this term to be more inclusive than you were last term. That ongoing commitment is what genuine inclusion looks like.
Early Years Shop is part of the Canavan Byrne brand and provides admissions policies, compliance resources and documentation tools designed for Irish early years settings. Browse our full range at earlyyearsshop.ie.
Visit earlyyearsshop.ie to browse our admissions policies, compliance resources and quality and compliance range.
