Ms Kate Duggan:

I will mention two things. We have seen a slight reduction in the number of children in the care of the State and a maintenance of the number who are in foster care. That continues to be 90%. What we are seeing is that with children and young people - mainly young people - who are coming into residential care or special care, rather than seeing a significant increase in terms of numbers, we are seeing a significant increase in terms of need, which means they cannot go into four-bed placements. They have to go into single or dual occupancy. That is obviously causing a correlating increase in cost to those placements, but it also means we have seen almost a doubling of the number of emergency arrangements we have had to put in place for children where there has been breakdown at home or a breakdown in a residential unit. We have seen a 500% increase in the number of separated children seeking international protection who need to be accommodated by the State.