Sharon Keogan warns that for-profit operators now control over 70% of residential care placements, raising costs and risking the viability of voluntary organisations. In this address she challenges spot purchasing, calls out gaps in aftercare entitlements and demands a long-term strategy for children in state care.
Private sector takeover
Sharon Keogan highlights the rapid growth of commercial providers in residential child care and the financial consequences for the state and voluntary organisations. She contrasts weekly costs in voluntary care with higher private rates and questions the logic of outsourcing moral responsibility to private equity.
Homelessness and aftercare
Keogan questions why the state allows care leavers to be pushed into emergency homeless settings, arguing that adult homelessness should never be an acceptable outcome of time spent in care. She points to national youth homelessness data that identifies care leavers among those most at risk and stresses the need to expand aftercare entitlements.
Under-12s and therapeutic needs
The address raises alarm about a surge in children under 12 requiring residential care and asks whether voluntary organisations have the funding and wraparound therapeutic resources to meet these needs. Keogan defends residential placements as valid therapeutic interventions for some children whose trauma and behaviour are not manageable in fostering.
Planning and education consequences
Keogan calls the situation an omni-crisis driven by the absence of a long-term strategic plan. She warns that multiple placement breakdowns interrupt education and argues for structured, continuous care that supports schooling and therapeutic continuity for vulnerable children.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Thank you for coming in to discuss this really important topic when it comes to the care of our children that are going through care of the state, and particularly the aftercare model. So I'm deeply alarmed at the for-profit commercial sector that now controls over 70% of our residential care placements. The state cannot outsource its moral duties to private equity. Wales legally committed to eliminating private profit from children's care. Why is Ireland moving in the opposite direction and letting commercial operators dictate our capacity? You're obviously, the model that you've exposed here today, a total lack of common sense is what you have exposed here today. Voluntary care costs £4,000, £5,000 weekly while private care blooms into £6,500. A five placement house saves the state £800,000 annually compared to the private model. So how can we justify this predatory spot purchasing while five of our own long-standing voluntary organisations face financial ruin? And the other issue is in the adult homelessness. Child protection failures lead directly to catastrophic societal outcomes. You've stated with absolute clarity that adult homelessness cannot be an acceptable outcome to time spent in care. What percentage of care leavers exiting your services are currently being pushed directly into emergency homeless settings because the state has failed to expand aftercare entitlements? And in relation to therapeutic services, I've raised the alarm many times about the extreme vulnerability of the youngest cohort. You've highlighted a major surge in children under the age of 12 requiring residential care due to the complex needs. So how equipped are the voluntary organisations to manage under 12s and what services and the wraparound therapeutic resources in the state are being failed for their lack of funding for this age group? I think the first, we're in an omni-crisis I suppose is why it's happening and that's that lack of a long-term strategic plan. We've never had one. So we could tussle as ended at the beginning shrunk the number of beds it had and the voluntary services have been frozen, the number of young people requiring placement stayed the same or went up, therefore a vacuum was created which for-profit services failed. Long-term planning and vision we mean that won't happen. In terms of homelessness, we don't have a specific percentage from our services leaving but our recent youth homeless strategy, the national strategy would have identified care leavers as one of the cohort most likely to end up in homelessness and recent research from the DRAG up to, I think it was up to 2024, showed that care leavers were one of the higher levels of new people coming into homelessness. So I can get you some of the research and forward that on. But the key, it's not like it's floods of people, this is an achievable goal. We're talking about double digits, low hundreds, not thousands. So it is a completely achievable to reverse that and have a functioning system, but it needs long-term framework and not constant firefighting response. The second part on the under-12s. The under-12s, just to say that I think the volunteers, because we have an under-12 within our service and stuff, so we're very capable of looking after. I think some of the proposals that would have went in from the voluntary providers in 2023 looked at under-12 centres, because I know we were one of them that put in a proposal that we would be able to look after the under-12s if needed. I suppose Roisin, Kate or Sir? We started a designated service for children under the age of 12 in 1997, and we have been able to sustain that service since then. And we opened a second service there in 2023, again designated for under-12s. I suppose from our perspective, we would see, although we're all acknowledging that fostering would be the preferred placement, but for some children that's not something that is suitable for them. Due to the complexity of their needs, due to acute childhood experiences and trauma, the complexity of their challenging behaviour is not necessarily manageable within a fostering support service. So we would argue that a residential placement should be viewed as an appropriate therapeutic intervention, especially if you can provide that continuity of care, that it's a good quality system that provides structured safety and promotes the relation, the therapeutic relationship. Like the example that I would give is that if you decide to not go down that route, that potentially what you're exposing that child to is multiple placement breakdowns that could, that leads to ruptures. And speaking of that, multiple placement breakdowns, those children don't get access to education as a result of that because they're being moved from house to house to house to house. So when they're in voluntary care, what is the position in relation to education? Do they have to go to school? Are they made to go to school? Or you treat services? Is there a sort of mandatory that there's compulsory, the must attend education settings? What is it just in relation to that? I suppose I can only speak from our experience. So we're very fortunate in terms of we have a working relationship with our local primary school. So when a child comes into our care, let's say it's outside of the normal academic school year, that we will negotiate with the school next door around potentially getting that child admitted and registered with that school. If they're not able for that, we will look at maybe a slow integration into mainstream schooling. And that could involve their accessing a small classroom setting where they get some educational hours. We do promote and do believe that children need to be in education. So if we cannot access our school, the local school in our area, we would look at other schools within the locality that that child can attend. But we do promote that. We also would advocate for a structured day scenario where at least the children are getting some educational support during the school day, provided by the social care staff and or if needed, additional hours of homeschooling, if that was required. But we're very fortunate to have a very good relationship. That's in your service. What about the other services? I know it's really important. I hope somebody gets up again because it's very good. It just doesn't happen. I'm always very strict on the first round because people have places to be.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
