Over €130,000 was spent by Tusla on housing children in B&Bs in 2022, Freedom of Information figures released to Newstalk have revealed.  

The child and family agency runs an out-of-hours service for children in need of emergency care, and referrals increased by 56% in the space of a single year. 

It is, Sinn Féin have claimed, an illustration of a broken system. 

Sign for Tusla the Child and Family Agency at one of their offices in Dublin, Ireland. State agency responsible for child protection in Ireland.

“To think they [the children] are being put into a B&B or a hotel or an emergency placement, it’s obviously not good,” the party's spokeswoman on children Kathleen Funchion told Newstalk. 

“So, I think we need to look at the whole kind of bigger picture and see how we can fix some of those systemic problems.” 

In 2021, 698 children were referred to the National Out of Hours Service and by 2022 that figure had risen to 943. 

Tusla have been contacted for comment.

Main image: A hotel bedroom.