Tusla paid private firms €36m to house children in an unregulated system
Tusla paid more than €36 million to private operators to accommodate vulnerable children in unregulated placements in the first seven months of last year. In October Dublin District Court judge Conor Fottrell said the use of “unregulated, unregistered placements” for children in care “should come to an end”. Figures provided under Freedom of Information legislation show just five companies shared more than €25 million between January 1st and August 1st to accommodate children in what are known as special emergency arrangements (SEAs) – typically rented houses or apartments, hotel rooms or B&B accommodation. These, at 54 locations across the State, are not inspected by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) and fall outside statutory regulations – raising concerns as to their suitability for children at high risk of harm.READ MOREIrish man (20) who died on Alps skiing trip is named locallyEnoch Burke granted leave to seek injunction against disciplinary appeals panelTrump’s Walmart warmongering in Venezuela isn’t empire building, it’s entertainment‘I work with a lot of Irish people around my age. Sometimes they ask me questions that are a bit weird’In October, before the judge’s remarks, it emerged the Tusla accommodation in Donaghmede, Dublin, in which Ukrainian teenager Vadym Davidenko (17) died violently, had been a SEA operated by Kare Plus, an umbrella company operating a number of franchises and one of the biggest providers of SEAs.In November Dublin District Court judge John Campbell ordered an independent review into the use of SEAs to accommodate three child asylum seekers in two separate cases. At the end of that month, there were 185 children in SEAs, of whom 68 per cent were separated children seeking asylum. The data released to The Irish Times shows in total, up to August last year, Tusla spent €36,058,553 on SEAs. The biggest earner in the period was Baig and Mirza Health Service, trading under the Kare Plus franchise. It was paid €9,106,390 between January and August. In 2024 it was paid a total of €17.2 million.This was followed by Comet Care, trading under the MCMA Healthcare franchise, paid €7.4 million for SEAs during the seven months to August 2025. Tender Touch services got €4,4 million in the same period, while Superior Health trading as Kare Plus Cork got €2.7 million and Clarion Healthcare got €2 million. Figures showing how many children were in SEAs were provided for both the beginning and end of November last year – showing an increase from 150 children on 2nd November to 185 four weeks later on 30th November. The higher figure was comprised of 58 children in mainstream SEA services and coming from households in the State, and 127 children having arrived from abroad seeking international protection. A Tusla spokesman indicated children coming into mainstream SEAs typically arrive in emergency circumstances, often via the out-of-hours services. Of the 55 at the start of November, six were aged 12 or younger; 22 were aged 12 to 15, and 27 were aged 16 or 17. Among the 95 child asylum seekers in SEAs in early November, eight were aged 12 to 15, with 31 recorded as aged 16 and 56 as aged 17. The Tusla spokesman said a reduction in the number of children in mainstream SEAs since 2024 had “been achieved through the opening of additional registered placements. “We are exhausting all avenues to continue to increase the capacity of residential care services, to further reduce our reliance on SEAs ... and we are confident that we will continue to see further reduction.”Global factors driving a need for SEAs for child asylum seekers were “outside of the control of Tusla”, he said. The agency had 64 registered units providing 448 regulated beds for this cohort.
