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How a social inclusion service is funded

Read your grant agreement before you read this. A social inclusion service in Ireland is funded from one of two different EU funds, and they do not share rules, bodies or deadlines. ESF+ runs through the EIST programme, with DFHERIS as Managing Authority — that is the route for employment, education and social inclusion work, but its Irish beneficiaries are LCDCs, ETBs and State bodies, never an NGO. AMIF runs through the Funds Administration Unit of the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration — that is the route for work with international protection applicants and third-country nationals, and it awards money two ways, through open calls and direct awards; calls need 25% match funding. The full chain for each is on its own page; under ESF+ you are not the beneficiary.

ESF+ or AMIF — not both at onceReg. (EU) 2021/1057 (ESF+) · Reg. (EU) 2021/1147 (AMIF) · CPR Reg. (EU) 2021/1060ESF+ EIST: €1.08bn, €508m from the EU · AMIF Ireland: €98.73m, €83.57m from the EU (programme as amended, March 2026)
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.

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European Commission — DG Employment (ESF+) or DG HOME (AMIF)
Approves the programme, receives the annual accounts and accepts the assurance package. Which directorate is behind your money depends on which fund pays you.
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Managing Authority — DFHERIS for ESF+, the Funds Administration Unit of the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration for AMIF
Runs the programme, verifies claims and draws up the accounts. Under ESF+ the accounting function is in DFHERIS; under AMIF it sits with the Funds Administration Unit.
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The body that awards the work
Under ESF+ your contract comes from the beneficiary, not the fund — for SICAP the Local Community Development Committee, which issues the Call-Off Contract; the Department of Rural and Community Development is only the Intermediate Body. Under AMIF there is no intermediate body for the main programme; a separate intermediate authority inside the Department handles Returns.
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
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Your organisation — beneficiary only under AMIF
Signs the AMIF agreement, or a contract from the ESF+ beneficiary; keeps participant records and displays the EU emblem. Both pay in instalments, partly up front.
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Participants
The people the service is for. Under AMIF the project must see and copy a document confirming eligibility before it can register someone; under ESF+ the common indicators are collected under an EU rule, and the disability and ethnicity questions are optional.
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Audit Chain
Built upward from your own records, but different in each fund. Your files → management verifications by the Managing Authority or its Intermediate Body (Art. 74) → the accounting function draws up the accounts (Art. 76) → the Audit Authority audits independently (Art. 77): for ESF+ the Internal & EU Audit Unit of the Department of Education and Youth, for AMIF the designated Audit Authority under the Department that runs the fund → the European Commission. Alongside: the Local Government Audit Service (SICAP), the Comptroller and Auditor General, OLAF.

Process maps under this programme

Where this came from

Human reviewed2026-09-21Automatically checked2026-10-12Current source statusAutomatic check incomplete — human check requiredThe source could not be reached automatically. Published content has been preserved for human checking.

Read against the source on 2026-09-21. This is the human-reviewed version.

What that check changed: Reviewed and updated on 21 September 2026 against both funds' own programme documents and the Managing Authorities' pages; 14 sources are listed below. This entry covers ESF+ and AMIF together, and its point is that they do not share rules, bodies or deadlines: it names which route is which and sends you to each fund's own entry for the full chain. The AMIF figure shown is €98.73m, the amount in the March 2026 programme amendment. Two differences matter most in daily practice: under AMIF the project must see and copy a document confirming eligibility before it can register someone, and under ESF+ the common participant indicators are collected under an EU rule rather than under consent. The steps for applying, claiming and co-funding are not set out here — take them from the fund's own entry.