Tusla has said it is working with childcare providers who are at risk of closure tomorrow due to delays with registration renewals.
Seventeen crèches had issues with registration mainly due to garda vetting.
Early years services are legally required to renew their registration with Tusla's inspectorate for the purposes of inspection and regulation every three years.
The child and family agency said services cannot continue to operate without renewing their registration.
This is the first year that Tusla has responsibility for the garda vetting application service for registered childcare providers - but it said there are no delays or issues on its end.
Tusla said that it has made extensive efforts this weekend to contact and assist the Early Years providers to try to come up with a solution to the problem.
One of the 17 crèche owners, who is based in Co Cork, said she has been told by Tusla she can open her doors tomorrow by allowing staff who are garda vetted to run her facility.
However, she has to stay away from her crèche until her garda vetting is renewed.
She said her documents were submitted by the deadline of 31 December but she was asked this evening to resubmit those documents which she said could take weeks to process.
Tusla said that over 3,200 Early Years services renewed their registration by the deadline of 31 December 2025.
Chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, Elaine Dunne, has called for a meeting with Tusla and the Department of Children to come up with a solution to ensure this does not happen again.
"An emergency meeting between Tusla and the provider representatives across the country must take place to ensure that this disruption to providers, families and staff does not happen again.
"It's an unnecessary stress to providers," Ms Dunne added.
Another owner from Co Meath, who has been working in childcare for 23 years, also got a letter saying she cannot open from tomorrow.
She said she had all the required documents in before the 31 December deadline.
She had initially been delayed due to ID issues, but said that was rectified by mid-December.
She has two current garda vetting certificates for other organisations.
She said: "I have never had a problem. I have been vetted since 2002, since college, and never had a problem until this issue arose."
