€2.3m: Cost of care for 15 youths abroad

MORE than €2.3 million was spent last year on placing 15 troubled young people in special care facilities and private foster care outside the country, with one placement in Scotland costing more than €500,000 a year.

Documents obtained by the Irish Examiner reveal the number of young people sent for care in other countries rose from nine in 2009, at a cost of more than €800,000, to 15 last year.

Among the most extreme and expensive were placements in: