Cost of each child in care is €330K a year or nearly €7K a week
Foster care bill rises to €350m as Tusla warns costs are set to increase
THE State is paying more than €330,000 per year for every child in care, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
And the total bill to provide foster care has risen to €350m a year, according to figures provided by Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman in response to parliamentary queries from Independent TD Carol Nolan.
Tusla, the State child and family agency, confirmed the cost per child of residential care is now an average of €6,388 per week.
The agency also admitted places can cost between €4,730 and €6,737 per week, depending on whether the place is provided by the voluntary or private sector, the latter being more expensive. And it warned costs are set to increase even further.
In response to Ms Nolan’s queries Tusla said: ‘These residential care figures refer to a point in time in 2023 pre price increase and will be recalculated once 2023 financial data is finalised.
‘Voluntary sector costs will increase owing to additional funding allocated in 2023-2024.’
‘Tusla also confirmed there were 5,613 children in care last year, although this does not include minors receiving care under the Service for Separated Children Seeking International Protection.’
Of the children in the care of the State, Tusla said 5,034 (90%) are in foster homes. Of these, 3,560 children are in general foster care, with a further 1,474 in the foster care of a relative.
Some 408 (7%) children are in residential care, 397 of whom are in general residential care, with 11 in special care. A further 171 children (3%) are listed as being in ‘other’ care placements.
Tusla said in its statement: ‘The Child and Family Agency is committed to ensuring children and young people are supported to live at home with their families.
‘Every effort is made to place children and young people within their extended family (relative foster care) or in a foster care placement. Where this is not possible, the child or young person may be placed in a children’s residential centre which are comprised of statutory, private, voluntary and special care placements.’
Responding, Ms Nolan said: ‘I am deeply alarmed the number of children requiring State care and the intervention of social services remains, not just stubbornly high, but is virtually the same from where we were in 2019, when we had 5,951 children in State care.’ ‘Five years later, the number of such children stands at 5,613, but we know this does not include children receiving care under the Service for Separated Children Seeking International Protection. The number in real terms may actually be higher than 2019.
‘There appears to be no real shifting of the dial in terms of the level of neglect and familial dysfunction that children are facing year after year.’ Ms Nolan called on
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris to ‘prioritise’ the treatment of vulnerable children in State care.
She told the MoS: ‘The relative costs of all of this cannot be measured in purely financial terms, as significant as they are. But the costs per week are eye-opening, as is the number of children involved.’ The latest figures will increase unease over the ‘runaway cost’ of spending on troubled children.
In response to queries, a spokesman for Tusla said: ‘Yes, the average cost per year for a child or young person in a residential placement is over €300,000.’
In relation to fostering placements, the spokesman added: ‘At the end of January 2024 there were 15 young people in out-of-State placements, 14 of these were in foster care placements.’
Concern has been expressed over the expenditure by the State of more than €70m to place vulnerable children in ‘unregulated’ emergency accommodation over just 18 months.
Department of Children figures highlighted Tusla’s increasing reliance on emergency arrangements, where children are housed in B&Bs, rental properties or in holiday lets.
The use of Special Emergency Arrangements (SEA) has been criticised by children’s rights groups, politicians, and judges, who say they are unsuitable for vulnerable young people in care.
In May 2022, then Tusla chief Bernad Gloster – now HSE chief – admitted that the dependency on private providers was a cause for concern as he outlined a plan to increase ‘public provision’.
But that year the State’s spending on SEA jumped to €38.4m, from €1.4m in 2014.
‘The number in real terms may be higher’
‘The costs per week are eye-opening’