Stability of care system queried as 320 children put in three or more placements last year

Children’s Rights Alliance CEO Tanya Ward said: 'We urgently need to understand why these placements are failing and how we can bring stability to these vulnerable children’s lives.' Picture: iStock

More than 320 children were placed in three or more different care placements last year, leading to concern about the stability of the children in the care system.

The figure was up from 179 children in 2020, and accounted for 5.7% of the 5,705 children who were in care last year.

The figures were provided by Tusla to Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne.

Thomas O’Driscoll, a social worker who has care experience, described the figures as troubling. He said: “Each move is not just a change of address, it’s a rupture in trust, belonging, and identity that can echo across a child’s entire life, shaping how they see themselves and their place in the world.”

The placements included in general and relative foster care, and residential care. Tusla said placements for children in care can change for a range of reasons including:

• Changes in circumstances of the foster carers;
• Changes in circumstances within a residential care centre, which may require temporary bed closures;
• Changes in the circumstances of the child where their needs cannot be met within their existing placement, or where a short-term or specialist intervention is required.

The response to Mr Byrne added: “Tusla works hard to keep placement moves to a minimum, and every effort is made to place children in a care setting close to their original home where possible. Sometimes children may need to move temporarily, such as to a different county or location, until a more suitable or long-term placement closer to home can be found.”

Mr O’Driscoll said his own experience of having grown up in residential state care means he knows how instability can result. He said: 

You learn early not to expect things to last, not people, not places, not promises. That uncertainty follows you into adulthood, and while some find healing, many never fully do.

He is calling for an urgent root-and-branch care review in Ireland “that puts love, stability, trauma-informed care, and children’s rights at its centre moving from crisis management to true care.”

He added that “no child should ever feel like they’re being moved around a system instead of being held within a community of love.”

Children’s Rights Alliance chief executive Tanya Ward described the figures as deeply concerning.

“Stable placements allow children to build trusting relationships and thrive. When children bounce between placements, trouble follows. 

We urgently need to understand why these placements are failing and how we can bring stability to these vulnerable children’s lives. 

EPIC (empowering people in care) chief executive Wayne Stanley said that while placement breakdowns can occur for many reasons, instability in care placements “may negatively affect children’s mental health, relationships, and life outcomes during and after leaving care”.