What we saw on "RTÉ Investigates" last night was absolutely shocking. It went to the heart of any parent out there. Children in the care of the State are being placed in really dangerous and wholly inappropriate settings. We are talking about unregulated emergency arrangements with no proper oversight where children are exposed to violence and trauma that will stay with them for the rest of their life. Young people are leaving care into homelessness. It is appalling and it is absolutely shameful.

These are children without a voice. They are overwhelmingly from working class communities and they are treated as if they do not matter while private profiteering continues. As we heard, none of this is new. Judges and child advocates have repeatedly raised the alarm with the Government and the concerns that Tusla is at a crisis point.

This is systemic. It is a political failure. People are asking what on earth is going on with children in the care of the State. When is the Government going to get a grip on this and make sure it comes to an end? We have seen too many programmes and reports.

The Deputy's time is up.

I agree with a lot of what the Deputy said in the sense of these being extraordinarily harrowing cases involving extraordinarily vulnerable children. I want to answer his question. I know all of us in this House would say that these children do matter. Their voices do matter. All of us need to be their voice. I did have a good conversation with the CEO of Tusla earlier, with whom I have regular engagements. Tusla is making real progress in terms of opening more centres and reducing the reliance on what are called special emergency arrangements, SEAs. Alongside that, and regardless of it, there are laws in this country that have to be applied too. There are also matters that I believe are matters for An Garda Síochána. There are laws if anybody has committed a criminal act against a vulnerable child in this country and those laws need to be enforced. I understand there have been five Garda referrals and six centres were closed over a period.

I too want to raise last night's horrific programme. Like the Tánaiste, I thank Barry O'Kelly and "RTÉ Investigates" for bringing this in front of us. As has been said in this House already, it is not the first time that I and others have brought up this concern. Three weeks ago, Independent Ireland raised concerns we have on Private Members' business about Tusla services, SEAs and problems concerning them. It is simply not good enough that the most vulnerable in society are put at risk by these arrangements.

The State seems to be more concerned about bringing these vulnerable children to court rather than dealing adequately with their complex needs. The fact remains that Tusla has handed out €240 million to 93 unregulated providers of SEAs. This includes one company to which it paid over €41 million. Questions remains. Will an investigation be launched by the Government into last night's findings? Are there any financial penalties for SEA providers? Does the Government have a timeline to get rid of SEAs?

Last year alone, more than 106,000 referrals were received by Tusla. There are over 6,000 children in foster care with foster parents or in registered centres doing well. The vast majority of children in care are thriving and are being well looked after. The vast majority of them are in education or training. That is not to take away from the harrowing failures.

The Government will of course want to receive a full report from Tusla on this. I acknowledge that Tusla is working hard on this. We are seeing a reduction in the reliance on SEAs. We need to see an acceleration of that. We are seeing that against a backdrop of a greatly increased number of referrals. There can be no escaping the law in terms of any consequences for anyone who has breached the law.