Ms Kate Duggan:

Regarding the special emergency arrangements, what we have seen, particularly over the last three to four years, is a significant increase in demand and that has been driven largely by the number of separated children and young people who have presented into this country seeking international protection. We have seen a 500% increase and we have had to respond to 1,200 young people. These are young people who turn up in our office, brought from the IPO, who on that night have to be found a bed. There can be six, seven or eight of them. On the other side, last week, to give the Deputy a figure, there was about 115 of those young people in an emergency arrangement. Last week, there was about 61 young people, from what we call our mainstream system, in a special emergency arrangement. When I came into the agency first, that was a number that was down in the low 20s and 30s. What we are seeing is that changing profile. Some of it we are attributing to post-Covid. What we are seeing is a group of young people. When we look at the 61 people who were there, only one of them was in a hotel. Sometimes people think it is always a hotel. On that, 86% of those young people came to us directly from a breakdown in home where parents may be involved in criminality or there are concerns around exploitation or about addiction or they have come to us where their behaviour has escalated because of underlying disability or mental health and they are unable to stay in a foster care or residential placement. The demand has driven the cost increase.