How ESF+ reaches an education and training provider
This is the same money as the ESF+ entry, seen from a provider’s side. Ireland’s ESF+ programme is Employment, Inclusion, Skills and Training (EIST), and ETB Training sits under its employment priority. Money arrives as reimbursement of checked spending, not as an advance: the EU pays 40% of a claim in the Southern and Eastern & Midland regions and 60% in the North-Western region, and the Irish Exchequer pays the rest. Retention: CPR Art. 82 keeps documents for five years from 31 December of the year of the last payment, and your own contract may require longer — apply the longer period.
ESF+ — via SOLAS and an ETBReg. (EU) 2021/1057 · CPR Reg. (EU) 2021/1060Set by your ETB contract — ETB Training is one action under Priority 1 of the €1.08bn EIST programme (€508m EU + €573m Ireland); see the ESF+ entry
One programme, too many disconnected records. Delivery notes, partner decisions, expenditure, results and reporting evidence often sit in different places.
How the money reaches an organisation
Every level here can be asked for its own process map. That is the point of yours.
European Commission — DG Employment
Allocates €508m ESF+ to Ireland under Reg. (EU) 2021/1057, approves the EIST programme and accepts the annual accounts submitted to it.
DFHERIS — ESF+ Managing Authority and Accounting Function
Manages the EIST programme, runs management verifications with the Intermediate Bodies (CPR Art. 74), draws up the accounts (Art. 76) and submits the payment applications to the Commission.
SOLAS — Intermediate Body for ETB Training
Named in writing under CPR Art. 71(3). Allocates the further education and training funding, sets the reporting and verification requirements, and checks the claims that come up from the Boards.
Education and Training Board — the contracting body
Sixteen Boards nationally. The Board holds the contract with you, pays you and is the first body to check what you claim.
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
Your training organisation — the contracted provider
Delivers the training, keeps the learner records the programme requires, gets the programme validated by QQI where a QQI award is offered, and claims the cost back afterwards.
Learners
The people on the course. In ESF+ language the beneficiary is the organisation that claims; these are participants, and the common indicators recorded about them are collected under an EU rule, not under consent.
Audit Chain
Built upward from your own records. Your learner files, attendance and cost records → the Education and Training Board checks the claim → SOLAS as Intermediate Body runs management verifications (CPR Art. 74) → DFHERIS as Managing Authority and Accounting Function draws up the accounts (Art. 76) and claims from the Commission → the ESF+ Audit Authority — the Internal & EU Audit Unit of the Department of Education and Youth, functionally independent of the Managing Authority under Art. 71(2) — audits systems, operations and accounts (Art. 77) → the European Commission accepts the accounts. Alongside, not above: the Comptroller and Auditor General, the European Court of Auditors, and OLAF.
Process maps under this programme
Where this came from
Human reviewed2026-09-08Automatically checkedMonitoring pendingCurrent source statusAutomatic baseline required
- Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 (Common Provisions Regulation) — Art. 71(2) the independence of the audit authority, Art. 74 management verifications, Art. 82 retention — Official Journal of the European UnionA · Governing source checkedAuto: review needed
- Employment, Inclusion, Skills and Training (EIST) Programme 2021–2027 — five priorities and their actions, ETB Training under Priority 1, 40% and 60% co-financing by region — ESF+ Managing Authority (DFHERIS), via EU Funds IrelandB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
- Internal and EU Audit Unit — ESF+ Audit Authority, functionally independent of the Managing Authority — Department of Education and YouthB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
Read against the source on 2026-09-08. This is the human-reviewed version.
What that check changed: Rewritten on 8 September after an audit found it repeating, in a sharper form, the error the ESF+ entry was corrected for the day before: it placed the Audit Authority inside DFHERIS, the Managing Authority. Article 71(2) requires the audit authority to be functionally independent of the bodies it audits, and in Ireland it is the Internal and EU Audit Unit of the Department of Education and Youth. The audit chain now runs upward from the provider’s own learner and cost records through the Education and Training Board, SOLAS as Intermediate Body, DFHERIS as Managing Authority and Accounting Function, to the Commission, with the Comptroller and Auditor General, the European Court of Auditors and OLAF alongside. The entry also now says the thing a provider most needs to know and it did not: this is reimbursement of checked spending, at 40% EU in most of Ireland and 60% in the North-West, with the Exchequer paying the rest.