A man who spent time in unregulated care four years ago has described the conditions as "barbaric".
Peter (whose name has been changed for reasons of confidentiality) was aged 14 when he was moved from residential care and placed in a Special Emergency Arrangement (SEA) by Tusla.
Latest figures show that, last year, more than 1,100 children were placed in SEAs - accommodation run by private companies for what is supposed to be short periods of time.
Peter explained how he was taken to a hotel, where he stayed overnight, before being transferred to the SEA far away from where he is originally from in Dublin.
He was collected by three staff members, who were not Irish and could not speak English.
Describing the SEA accommodation, he said: "The room that I was staying in had holes on the bed. I lifted the sheet up off the bed and there were urine stains on it.
"It just wasn't clean, the floor was definitely not hoovered. Then you could not flush the toilet, so when you're going toilet then it's just there.
"There was no food in the house, there was nothing, they didn't care. There was no MiWadi or anything, just basically water, like, there was no actual food in the freezers, in the fridge, nothing in the presses.
"The staff were staying in bed until four o'clock in the day; weren’t checking on me, I could have been anywhere like, anything could have happened.
"As I said, there was one toilet in a house where I am living there, and there is two other grown men and a woman in the house where you can't flush the toilet.
"It's against human rights, it's barbaric. How I even got put into the place, no-one went and checked out that place because if they did it would have been shut down."
Peter said that he was not made to go to school and he sat in his room for two weeks.
He described feeling "angry, scared, but too afraid to tell anyone I was scared, but I didn’t want to tell anyone I was scared because I didn’t want them to think I was weak.
"I just had to put a strong face on and say this is what it's going to be until I was 18.
"I was smoking cannabis and all because that was the only way I could help myself, that was the only thing that was keeping me on a steady float.
"I needed someone that actually cared to speak to. Anytime I rang a social worker I always just got their voicemail."
