Tom Clonan (Independent)

Cuirim fáilte romhaibh go léir isteach go dtí an coiste. I thank the Minister for meeting Gillian and Stephen Sherratt along with the Tánaiste this week. I know that cannot have been an easy meeting. I also thank the Minister for the Government's commitment to holding a statutory inquiry into the activities of CHI. I am reassured to see that CHI has been incorporated into the authority of the HSE. I know the Minister will have heard things at that meeting that indicate that people on waiting lists - disabled children and adolescents - are becoming inoperable and, in many cases, experiencing life-limiting suboptimal outcomes because of the delay.

My first question concerns spinal surgery scoliosis waiting list. There are hundreds of children on that. With the resources that are available to the broader HSE, can that waiting list be prioritised and dealt with within the therapeutic timeframe for those children? Are there additional measures that can be taken to deal with that list, including treatment abroad?

My second question concerns the urology waiting list. There are teenage boys and girls and disabled children who are becoming infertile for lack of the routine therapeutic intervention they would get in other jurisdictions. They are becoming incontinent, with increased risk of cervical, bowel and renal cancers. This is a crisis of international proportions. I ask that the HSE deal with that waiting list in the same way that it deals with the spinal surgery scoliosis waiting list.

My final question is directed at both the Minister and Mr. Gloster. Would they characterise the situation relating to waiting lists in CHI as an emergency?