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Pre-Budget Submission 2027

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Introduction to EPIC’s Pre-Budget Submission

Click here to read EPIC’s Budget 2027 Measures
EPIC’s Key Asks for Budget 2027, calling for investment in children and families and a €370 million (26%) increase in Tusla funding. The key asks are: Independent advocacy: €850,000 to ensure every child in and transitioning from residential care has access to an independent advocate. Aftercare: Increase the aftercare allowance, introduce an aftercare payment for young people not in education or training, provide needs-assessed financial support, and ensure every young person leaving care has an aftercare worker. Training and recruitment: Funding to recruit 400 frontline Tusla staff and additional social workers. Foster care: Increased investment to support existing foster carers and encourage new fostering arrangements. Special care: Funding to implement recommendations from the External Review on Special Care and provide additional onward and high-support placements. Care-leaver homelessness: €35 million ring-fenced to local authorities for the management of 100 additional units in 2027. Disability: Reliable HSE funding for appropriate placements and supports for care-experienced young people with disabilities transitioning from care at 18. Mental health: HSE funding for a model of care providing mental health and therapeutic services to care-experienced young people until at least age 25. Education: Increased direct investment to support care-experienced students in further and higher education through accommodation and wrap-around supports.
Meeting the Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

EPIC’s Pre-Budget Submission 2027 is grounded in our direct engagement with children and young people across the country. It reflects their lived experiences of the care system, the barriers they face and the systemic pressures identified by EPIC advocates, including gaps in services, delays in accessing supports and inconsistencies in how policy is implemented in practice.

The submission calls for a 26% increase (€370 million) investment in Tusla to address the significant gaps that remain for children in care and young people with care-experience, particularly at key transition points such as leaving care. EPIC is calling for a shift within Government to recognise that children in care and young people with care-experience are the shared responsibility of the whole of Government, with coordinated investment across housing, health, education, disability supports, social protection and aftercare.

Budget 2027 must mark a decisive shift from policy commitment to delivery. Targeted, sustained investment is needed to address the challenges facing children in care and young people leaving care and to ensure the State fulfils its responsibilities as corporate parent.

Cover of EPIC's Pre-Budget Submission 2027
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