Tusla spent more than €130,000 housing children in hotels or B&Bs last year, as no other accommodation was available.
It is understood to be due to a lack of capacity within its national out-of-hours service.
The child and family agency runs an out-of-hours service to find shelter for young people overnight in emergency cases.
However, pressure on the service has continued to increase, with a 56 per cent rise in referrals in the last year.
Serious concerns are being raised about the agency service for finding overnight emergency accommodation for children, which its claimed is ‘in crisis’.
Increase on previous figures
Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Children, Carlow Kilkenny TD Kathleen Funchion, says placing children in hotels or B&Bs shows "the system is broken".
"To think of them being put into a B&B, or a hotel, or an emergency placement, it's obviously not good.
"I think we need to look at the bigger picture and see how we can fix some of those systemic problems."
More than 940 children were placed in the out-of-hours service in 2022, a 35 per cent increase on the previous year's figures.
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