TODAY’S report on the staggering cost of keeping a single child in residential care under “special arrangements” is particularly disturbing because many State residential care centres, built at enormous expense, are half-empty.

HEALTH boards paid out €85 million last year to keep just 600 children in residential care, new figures have revealed.

ASSAULTS on staff and a high use of physical restraint has led to a call for a total review of behaviour management in a unit for troubled children.