Carlow Kilkenny SF TD Kathleen Funchion says accommodating children in B&Bs, hotels or emergency placements is not good

Placing children in hotels and B&Bs shows that the system is broken.

That’s according to the Carlow Kilkenny Sinn Féin TD.

€130,000 was spent last year by Tusla housing children in such facilities as no other accommodation was available.

The child and family agency runs an out-of-hours service to find overnight shelter for young people in emergency cases.

However, pressure on the service has continued to increase, with a 56% rise in referrals in the last year.

SF spokesperson on Children, Kathleen Funchion says “To think they are being put into, like, a B&B or a hotel or emergency placement is obviously not good so I think we need to look at the whole bigger picture and see how we can fix some of those systemic problems”.