The government’s plan to decentralise youth care is again attracting criticism, this time from the commission over-seeing the transition and from council audit offices.

The commission has written to the health ministry saying just 25% of the youth care providers expect to have enough funding when decentralisation is introduced in 2015, the NRC reports on Tuesday.

Half of youth care providers fear their council budgets will not be enough to guarantee ‘continuity of care’, and the rest think it is too soon to know.

The audit offices of the four big cities are also concerned about youth care in 2015. In a report published on Tuesday, they question whether the savings of €450m on youth care in three years on a budget of €3bn can be achieved.

Nor do they think improvements in the system can be achieved in the short term, the NRC reports.