How SICAP funds reach your organisation
SICAP sits under Priority 3 of the Employment, Inclusion, Skills and Training (EIST) programme. The ESF+ action approved for SICAP is worth €164.24m over 2024–2028: almost €73m ESF+ and over €91m Irish national money. SICAP’s actual budget is larger — about €47m in 2024 and €52.5m in 2025 — because not all SICAP spending is claimed against ESF+. So most of what reaches you was raised at home, not in Brussels. The EU share is not paid to you directly: Ireland pays you from the Exchequer and claims ESF+ back afterwards, at a fixed unit cost per full-time SICAP worker. Your organisation sits at the Programme Implementer level, contracted by your LCDC and Local Authority across one of 53 lots.
ESF+ — via Pobal and your LCDCReg. (EU) 2021/1057 · unit cost Reg. (EU) 2019/2170€164.24m ESF+ co-financed allocation 2024–2028 · about €47–52m a year in practice
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 ESF+ to Ireland under Reg. (EU) 2021/1057 and reimburses SICAP at a standard unit cost per full-time SICAP worker (Reg. (EU) 2019/2170)
DFHERIS — ESF+ Managing Authority
Dept. of Further & Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science: Managing Authority and Accounting Function for the EIST programme — verifies the claim and submits it to the Commission
Dept. of Rural & Community Development & the Gaeltacht (DRCDG)
Lead funder and policy owner; the designated ESF+ Intermediate Body for SICAP; channels funding to LCDCs through the Local Authorities. Pobal acts as its agent.
Pobal
Agent of the Department: runs IRIS, monitors data, supports LCDCs and Implementers, does technical checks on plans and reviews. Not a party to your contract.
Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs)
33 LCDCs are the Contracting Authorities and ESF+ beneficiary bodies: they approve annual plans, monitor Programme Implementers and manage local budgets. The Local Authority is party to the contract, holds the SICAP bank account and pays the Implementer on the LCDC’s approval.
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
Programme Implementers — NGOs & Community Orgs
Contracted across 53 lots to deliver frontline supports to individuals and groups
People and groups supported (ESF+ participants)
Twelve target groups, including people in disadvantaged communities, the long-term unemployed, refugees and international protection applicants, disabled people, heads of one-parent families, Travellers, Roma and island residents
Audit Chain
Implementer keeps staff files → LCDC (with the Local Authority) verifies the yearly staff datasheet → Local Government Audit Service checks a sample of lots for the Department, the Intermediate Body → DFHERIS Managing Authority and Accounting Function verify and claim from the Commission → ESF+ Audit Authority (Department of Education and Youth, Internal & EU Audit Unit) audits a sample. Alongside, not above: the C&AG, the European Court of Auditors and OLAF. Because ESF+ is claimed per full-time SICAP worker on a standard unit cost, audits look at contracts and timesheets, not receipts.
Process maps under this programme
- SICAP — Goal 2: support for individualsTo move one person closer to learning, work, or the services they were already entitled to — so that disadvantage is answered by somebody who knows their name, rather than by a leaflet.
- SICAP — Goal 1: community groups & social enterprisesTo make a local group able to do something it cannot do today — so that a community with no staff and no legal structure can still act on its own behalf.
Where this came from
Human reviewed2026-09-07Automatically checkedMonitoring pendingCurrent source statusAutomatic baseline required
- SICAP Programme Requirements 2024–2028, version 1.0 (Sections 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11) — Pobal, for the Department of Rural and Community Development, February 2024A · Governing source checkedAuto: review needed
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/2170 — standard scale of unit costs used to claim ESF support for SICAP — Official Journal of the European UnionA · Governing source checkedAuto: pending
- Employment, Inclusion, Skills and Training (EIST) Programme 2021–2027 — €1.08bn: €508m EU, €573m Government of Ireland — ESF+ Managing Authority (DFHERIS), via EU Funds IrelandB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
- Internal and EU Audit Unit — ESF+ Audit Authority — Department of Education and YouthB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
- Annual Report 2024 — €47.4m distributed to 53 SICAP lot areas in 2024 — Department of Rural and Community Development and the GaeltachtC · Official secondary sourceAuto: pending
Read against the source on 2026-09-07. This is the human-reviewed version.
What that check changed: Checked again on 7 September 2026 against the Programme Requirements, after an independent audit. Earlier versions got four things wrong. The budget read €1.08bn (Ireland’s whole EIST programme) and then €164.24m as if it were SICAP’s total — it is the ESF+ co-financed allocation, while SICAP’s real budget is about €47–52m a year. The audit chain placed Pobal and the C&AG as tiers and left out the Local Government Audit Service, the Managing Authority’s accounting function and the Commission. Pobal was shown as the ESF+ Intermediate Body, which is the Department. And the Local Authority, which holds the SICAP bank account and pays the Implementer, was missing. The maps now name the social-enterprise match funding, the start-up grant, the one-to-one condition for groups, Pobal as the first contact for data questions, and the current department names.