A crisis in the State’s care system and shortage of accommodation resulted in vulnerable children sleeping in hotels and then “wandering the streets” during the day, according to private warnings from senior officials in Tusla, the child and family agency. On any given evening last October there were up to 20 children in Tusla’s care with no place in a group care home or even a bed in unregulated emergency accommodation run by private companies.As a result, the young people were placed into hotel rooms, where private care staff were on site to supervise. The children, who were underage asylum seekers who arrived in the Republic without guardians, then spent the following days sitting in Tusla offices, or walking the streets, while social work staff scrambled to source places in any kind of care home for them. The situation was “completely unsustainable”, wrote Lorna Kavanagh, interim director of Tusla’s service for unaccompanied child asylum seekers, in an October 31st email to senior management. A “need-to-know” report intended to escalate serious concerns to the top of the State agency said staff were facing “unprecedented demand”. The number of unaccompanied children claiming international protection, a growing trend since the Ukraine war began in 2022, outstripped available space in Tusla’s residential placements, the report said. There were 68 young people in hotels or other types of emergency accommodation and the numbers were expected to increase, it said.Five emergency centres staffed by private companies had been ordered to close because of shortcomings, but there was “no capacity” to accommodate the young people elsewhere, the report stated. A shortage of foster carers and places in group care homes, coupled with a rise in the number of children taken into Tusla’s care, partly due to a spike in the number of unaccompanied child asylum seekers, has forced the State to increasingly rely on private companies to run emergency accommodation. Intense demand on Tusla’s services saw this unregulated sector become a fixture of the care system. The number of companies providing emergency accommodation for children in care has risen sharply in recent years An investigation by The Irish Times, drawing on internal documents and emails between senior officials, shows how pressure to source emergency housing led Tusla to disregard concerns about companies offering to open and run accommodation. One firm, Dunlicky View Residential, applied to open a regulated care home to house 15 underage asylum seekers in State care last year. An internal Tusla committee set up to assess companies seeking to operate care homes recommended that the Co Limerick company not be given a contract, documents show. The panel said possible conflicts of interest had not been disclosed by Dunlicky View, such as the fact several employees had previously worked for Tusla. The assessment said a €2.6 million a year contract provisionally agreed was an amount “significantly” higher than the agency’s usual pricing limits and “did not demonstrate value for money”. “The review panel were not aware of any previous situation that arose which resulted in a company requesting and receiving higher costs outside of the relevant process,” it added. Information shared about the company’s financial health was judged to be insufficient and staff training “had not been undertaken,” it said. The initial proposal from Dunlicky View sought €2.98 million a year to operate the 15-bed care home, a fee later reduced following a back and forth. In recent years senior figures in Tusla have become concerned about social workers and other staff leaving the State agency to enter the for-profit sector, as the number of new companies emerging to run emergency accommodation for children in care ballooned. Guidelines were introduced to guard against any perception of former employees having an “unfair advantage” in winning contracts. “It may adversely impact the public’s perception of the agency if [Tusla] were to engage former staff in business immediately after they retire or resign from their role,” the internal guidance states. Tusla requires companies to declare any possible conflicts, and says firms connected to former staff may be restricted from contracted work for a year.Internal Tusla emails indicate three Dunlicky View staff were previously “long serving employees” of the State agency. However, the company insisted that did not constitute a conflict of interest.[ Vulnerable children spending up to three years in unregulated ‘emergency’ accommodationOpens in new window ]The emails and other documents were released to The Irish Times following Freedom of Information requests. The company’s owner, David Lehane (54), a Limerick-based businessman who previously developed primary care centres for the HSE, did not wish to comment when contacted. Tusla’s committee evaluating Dunlicky View recommended the company should not be given a contract. The committee said there were “potential conflicts of interest that had not been declared and there were no proposals to mitigate any potential conflicts”, among other issues.However, Tusla senior management overruled the recommendation, due to the urgent need to provide more beds for children in care. Kavanagh, interim head of the service for unaccompanied child asylum seekers, pushed for Tusla to do business with the company as a way to “significantly reduce hotel use”. “On balance the greater risk seems to be to delay the opening of this centre and continue to place children in hotels,” she wrote in a November 3rd email. Dunlicky was offering “high quality accommodation”, she added, and the State’s care system responsible for separated child asylum seekers was at “crisis” point. Gerry Hone, Tusla’s national director of services, gave the go ahead to approve Dunlicky View to run a care home. “The risks associated with staying in hotels are much higher,” he wrote. Anthony O’Leary, Tusla’s head of quality and regulation, noted in private correspondence that young people sleeping in hotels were left spending the following day sitting in Tusla offices or “wandering the streets”. O’Leary did caution that a rush to approve companies to operate new care homes could cause problems down the line. “It is our judgment on possible conflict of interest that counts, not theirs”, the senior official said of Dunlicky. “It would appear to be a straightforward message to them that unless they can satisfy our criteria, then we do not have business for them,” he wrote on December 12th. A Tusla spokeswoman said the agency had been dealing with “an unprecedented increase in demand for all our services”. “Approval for Dunlicky Residential was recommended to reduce reliance on placing unaccompanied minors in emergency hotel accommodation. The centre was approved to open on a temporary basis while the service provider approval process continued.” Company filings show Dunlicky View Residential Holdings Ltd was set up in May 2025. Lehane, who has an address in Limerick, owns the firm. Companies Registration Office paperwork shows he has been involved in a number of businesses across the healthcare, aviation and property industries.He was a director of European Helicopter Academy Ltd, a now dissolved company that offered private helicopter flying lessons out of Weston Airport in Dublin. The Limerick businessman is involved in Ilex Healthcare, a company that develops and builds primary care centres for the HSE. A previous venture in that field ended up in the High Court. Lehane and several other Irish and London-based directors set up a firm, Thomond Healthcare, in 2018, as part of a plan to develop 20 HSE primary care facilities.Two factions of directors became embroiled in a legal dispute, leading Lehane and several other Irish executives to leave the venture in 2021. Thomond Healthcare was later put into liquidation, company filings show.[ If Tusla were a parent it would be prosecuted for neglect, judge saysOpens in new window ]Records show Tusla’s assessment panel flagged concerns about a number of other private companies hoping to operate care homes for the agency. Real Holistic Healthcare, a company based in Balbriggan, north Co Dublin, has applied several times for a Tusla contract. The assessment panel last year recommended Tusla reject the firm, citing concerns about the “level of qualifications and experience” of the company directors to run housing for children in care. Paperwork laying out the firm’s policies was “confusing” and the organisation could not show it had sufficient care staff on hand, the review said. Company accounts list Real Holistic Healthcare’s directors as Vitalis Ikeje (49), who has an address in Dublin 15; Vincent Nwamadi (42), with an address in Mullingar, Co Westmeath; Geoffrey Olubuunor (58), who lists an address in Balbriggan, Co Dublin; and Ngozi Amajuoyi (56), from Dublin 12, who is separately a director of the Irish chapter of Nigerian religious group Wailing Women Worldwide. Real Holistic Healthcare is seeking a contract to house three young people in a detached four-bed bungalow in Longford. One of the directors, Ikeje, said the company had been applying for a licence to run a care home for Tusla for the past two years. “We were kind of amazed that we weren’t approved ... Tusla are not giving people a chance to prove themselves,” he told The Irish Times. “They were telling us the policies and governance was not up to standard.” Ikeje explained that he had worked in social care for eight years, including for agencies contracted by Tusla. A care home run by Real Holistic would offer a better environment for young people than emergency accommodation or hotel rooms, he said. The company had applied to Tusla again for a contract and were waiting to hear back. “We have qualified staff, all of them are social care qualified ... We’ve done practically everything that Tusla has wanted,” Ikeje said. Separately, a litany of shortcomings were flagged about Reign Healthcare, a company Tusla has relied on to staff emergency accommodation for several years. The firm has been paid several million euro to house children in so-called “special emergency arrangements”. Company accounts list its directors as Tafadzwa Vambe (49) and Tariro Taruvinga (44), from Portarlington, Co Laois. The company applied for a contract to open two registered care homes last year, documents show.Tusla’s assessment said Reign Healthcare failed to submit a relevant tax certificate, or up-to-date information about its finances, and paperwork for most of its care staff was “non-compliant”. The committee also questioned the “suitability of the governance structures in place”. [ Tusla reports ‘unprecedented demand’ as referrals pass 100,000 for first timeOpens in new window ]The limited amount of information provided raised “concerns about the financial operations of the company,” it said. “The decision of the panel is NOT to recommend this company ... for approval,” the assessment concluded. A spokeswoman for Tusla confirmed the agency had no children placed with Reign Healthcare. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Tusla has been able to reduce the number of children in emergency arrangements this year. It has increased the number of beds in registered care homes for unaccompanied children seeking asylum from 300 to more than 500. The overwhelming majority of those centres are managed by private companies. A Tusla spokeswoman said there were no young people in care in hotels or bed and breakfasts this month. Some 59 young people were in temporary emergency accommodation and 18 unaccompanied child asylum seekers were in emergency “intake” accommodation.