Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said children are being placed into Special Emergency Arrangements which are "often unregulated, often have staff that are unvetted, and some don't even have references".
The experiences of vulnerable young people in Special Emergency Arrangements, or SEAs, was highlighted in an RTÉ Investigates documentary, 'A year in the Making', last night.
The vast majority of children in care in Ireland are placed in foster homes or in registered and regulated children's homes but there is an acute shortage of these placements.
When fostering placements break down or in cases of emergency admissions to care, some of these children are placed in SEA care homes.
SEAs are not regulated and can operate out of rented apartments, hotels and B&Bs.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Deputy Tóibín said they have uncovered a "harrowing case" of a 14-year-old girl who went missing from Tusla 24 hours after she was placed there.
"The child was missing for an entire year. She was found then in a brothel. She was the victim of unimaginable exploitation when she was supposedly in your Government's protection."
He also said children who are known to Tusla are being killed, including through 13 homicides over 12 years.
Mr Tóibín asked the Tánaiste if he will give a date to end the use of SEAs in the country.
Responding, the Tánaiste Simon Harris said there were 170 children in such arrangements last year but it is now down to 70 and Tulsa is working to further reduce it.
Mr Harris said Tusla is also working to register the services and have also closed six centres and stopped working with them.
He said there have been five referrals to An Garda Síochána.
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Minister for Children Norma Foley said of the remaining 70 SEAs in operation, 19 "have gone through registration, and they will be inspected by HIQA".
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One programme, she said: "A further 35 are going through registration, and a further 19 have actually now been taken under the wing of TUSLA.
"So we are working our way through each of the 70," Ms Foley said.
"We are working very hard to introduce measures to ensure that we will eventually just do away with it [SEA] in its entirety," the minister said.
In a statement, the Chief Executive of the Children's Rights Alliance Tanya Ward said: "The documentary once again exposed the inadequacy of SEAs. We have repeatedly called for the use of these placements to end.
"To enable that to happen, we need a whole-of-government focus to fast-track bringing new foster and residential placements on stream.
"While we acknowledge valuable efforts are being made by Tusla to recruit more staff and foster carers to create more placements, they are working against a backdrop of years of underinvestment and increasing complexity of cases."
Earlier today, the Director of Guardian ad Litem service for Barnardos Monica Hynds O'Flanagan described the RTÉ Investigates documentary as "a really difficult watch".
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Hynds O'Flanagan said having watched the programme that her "underlying feeling really ... was how angry I felt because it was utterly predictable".
She said Barnardos has been speaking out about this issue for the last four years, but has not seen "any sizable or really [any] change since then".
She said children placed in residential and foster care receive good quality care, as do children who receive special care.
However, the use of unregulated placements, which were meant to be a temporary measure a number of years ago, is the issue.
"They were meant to be a temporary reaction to an issue at the time and what we are seeing now is protracted use of them and it's really, really disappointing," Ms Hynds O'Flanagan said.
On average, SEAs cost Tusla €14,400 per child, per week. This contrasts with the weekly allowance given to fostering arrangements of €420 per child, per week.
Speaking on the same programme, the CEO of Tusla said that young people who have "not felt supported by the State" while in State care "absolutely" deserve an apology.
Kate Duggan said every child in State care deserves to feel supported by all services of the State and "where that hasn't happened it is completely unacceptable".
She described the experiences shared by the young people in the documentary as "very real, very distressing".
Ms Duggan added that the majority of children in care receive very good services, but "one person’s experience like that is one too many".
The Department of Children, Disability and Equality is currently working on the development in response to the Government’s promise to look at an alternative care strategy, she said.
Ms Duggan said that this time last year there were around 170 young people in Special Emergency Arrangements, with that figure now at just over 70.
"In the next month and two months we absolutely are confident that we are going to be able to reduce that down further and that we are going to be able to bring those (SEA) providers into compliance or we’re going to be able to bring those services in under TUSLA."
