“Having private, for-profit care goes against all you are trying to achieve for children in care,” says Terry Dignan, a spokesperson for charities that run children’s homes.
Councils are reluctant to use the single-stage process because they take on more risk if something goes wrong, says Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin.
It would make financial sense for after-school clubs to turn away children of non-working parents, says Austin Campbell of the Robert Emmet CDP. But “we don’t want to leave them behind. So we lose money.”
