How Tús reaches your organisation
Tús is Exchequer-funded, not EU-funded. There is no Managing Authority, no ESF+ regulation and no CPR Art. 82 retention clock behind it — do not import those from an EU map. The Department contracts the Implementing Bodies directly: there is no LCDC layer as in SICAP, and Pobal is payroll agent only. Two things to settle in writing before you rely on this map. The Implementing Body is the employer of record, not the host organisation where the work happens: the Department's guidelines have participants registered with Revenue as employed by the Implementing Body, and Pobal pays them on that basis. Check your own contract, but not as an open question. One thing does remain open — what the Department actually requires back from you — no Tús reporting template, claim schedule, verification requirement or quality standard is published anywhere. Map what your contract says, not what the guidelines say.
Exchequer — Vote 37 (Social Protection), subhead A.14 TúsNon-statutory initiative · Ministerial functions under Part 3, Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 · participation enforced under s.147(4), Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 20056,950 places nationally · €87.9m provided and €84.4m spent in 2024 (Vote 37, subhead A.14) — about €12,100 a place
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.
Department of Social Protection — Tús Unit
Policy owner and funder. Selects most participants by random selection from the Live Register, issues the operational guidelines, and allocates a place quota to each Implementing Body
Intreo Centres / Employment Personal Advisors
Issue the referral letter and take consent; approve assisted and self-referrals — the discretionary channel that Implementing Bodies cannot control and that drives their fill rate
Pobal
Payroll agent only — processes the weekly EFT payment to participants on the Department's behalf. Not a managing, contracting or verification body for Tús
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
Implementing Body — Local Development Company / Údarás na Gaeltachta
Approves host organisations, interviews and matches participants, issues contracts, supervises placements, reports to the Tús Unit. Employer of record in practice — confirm against your own contract
Host organisation — community, voluntary or not-for-profit group
Provides the work and the day-to-day direction and names an on-site supervisor. Not the employer: pay, leave, discipline and grievance stay with the Implementing Body
Participants
12 months or more on a jobseeker payment, plus no-qualifying-period routes: Disability Allowance, refugees, Roma and Travellers, JST from One-Parent Family Payment, and an 18-year-old pilot since November 2024
Audit chain
Built upward, and entirely national — there is no EU managing or audit authority here. Host organisation → Implementing Body → the Department's Tús Unit → the Accounting Officer of Vote 37, the Secretary General of the Department, who signs the appropriation account. Inside the Department, Internal Audit and the Audit and Risk Committee give their own assurance on that control system. Alongside, not above: the Comptroller and Auditor General audits the Vote 37 appropriation account and reports to Dáil Éireann — and expressly gives no assurance on the Department's own internal-control statement. No Tús-specific audit standard, verification schedule or published quality framework exists — that gap is the finding, not an omission in this map
Process maps under this programme
Where this came from
Human reviewed2026-09-07Automatically checkedMonitoring pendingCurrent source statusAutomatic check incomplete — human check requiredThe source could not be reached automatically. Published content has been preserved for human checking.
- How to appeal a social welfare decision — 60 days for a decision dated on or after 28 April 2025, and no appeal accepted after 180 days — Citizens Information BoardC · Official secondary sourceAuto: unavailable
- Appropriation Account 2024, Vote 37 Social Protection — subhead A.14 Tús: €87.9m provided, €84.4m spent — Office of the Comptroller and Auditor GeneralA · Governing source checkedAuto: pending
- Operational Guidelines: Tús — Community work placement initiative — Department of Social ProtectionB · Official operational guidance checkedAuto: pending
Read against the source on 2026-09-07. This is the human-reviewed version.
What that check changed: A budget of €104.5m and a participant count were removed because neither could be found in the Estimates or in any Dáil answer. What is left — 6,950 places — checks out. Checked again on 7 September 2026 after an independent audit, which found four things wrong — one of them the worst error found anywhere in this library. The map told people that an appeal against a Tús decision could be lodged within 180 days. The deadline is 60 days from the date on the letter; 180 days is the point after which a late appeal cannot be accepted at all. Someone relying on the old sentence could have lost the right to appeal. Also corrected: the PRSI note said Class J applied whenever the top-up was under €38, which reads as though almost everyone is on Class J — the rule is confined to participants who stay on Disability Allowance, and Class J does not build the same record; a 30% quota for six-month extensions that does not exist in any published source, for a measure last confirmed only to the end of June 2024; and the budget, which quoted €440m for Community Employment and Tús together when Tús has its own audited subhead — €87.9m provided and €84.4m spent in 2024. The employer-of-record question was presented as an unresolved conflict between sources; the Department's guidelines settle it, and the Implementing Body is the employer.