Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I met Gillian and Stephen Sherratt and am very grateful to them for that meeting, which was a very important one.

There is no agreement regarding the nature of a particular type of inquiry. We are exploring all of the different options. The Senator will recall that different forms of inquiry can take very different lengths of time. Some of them preclude the information used in the inquiry from being used in any other process, which is very important. For example, any information garnered in such a statutory public inquiry could not then be used in any other proceeding. Length of time is another factor. We are scoping out the different options. We must also identify people who would be capable of carrying out such an inquiry. We need to discuss the different options. That is a conversation with the advocates. I do not want to say it is settled because that is to be discussed.

I might ask Ms Conroy, in particular, and Ms Kenna to respond to the question about waiting lists and treatment abroad, as they have responsibility in that regard. Ms Conroy and I are looking at every possible option for supporting children who need surgery, particularly those with extreme complexity. I was not happy that we had facilitated treatment abroad schemes that had not been used by CHI and its clinical lead teams. It is inexplicable how more children were going to Blackrock this year and fewer children who needed surgeries were travelling abroad. I hear from parents different ways in which the option to go abroad is being articulated or not articulated and am very concerned about it. I am looking at all of my options domestically and internationally to find different ways to meet surgical needs for this particularly complex group of children - perhaps about 140 children - recognising that there has to be a point in time when their surgeries are appropriate but also that those different options have to be well presented in advance to them and their families. I am very pleased that, since July and not before, the Mater has taken over its responsibility, which we had agreed with it and paid it to do prior to that, for taking over some of the complex adolescent surgical work. I am pleased to see that this is beginning and we are looking where we can go further with that.

It is really important to reflect the HSE audit regarding the lists and management of lists. This is ongoing and is being led by Mr. Duggan. There is an important qualitative element that sits alongside that that I have asked to be done where parents will be asked how they ended up in this or that process. We should have that audit towards the beginning of December. It is looking at waiting list management. As that work is ongoing, I might reserve judgment on it, recognising that I have asked for it because I am concerned about how it is being done but I do not have the facts to verify anything I might say today. It is important that we discuss that audit.

Regarding CHI, I have taken this process over a number of months and have tried to be very careful about it precisely because I am very aware that services are being delivered in CHI on a day-to-day basis. Members will have seen that board appointments I made at an early stage were HSE board members. I signalled in the Dáil at, I believe, the end of May that there was a particular direction of travel and I was trying to be very careful about this and prioritising service delivery. I asked the HSE to strengthen the service-level agreement between the HSE and CHI. Since then, my meetings on the national children's hospital or spinal services have been with the HSE as well as CHI. It is a natural stage to move CHI in, both for overall governance reasons, given that there are too many disparate hospital governance structures, and because we are moving into the children's hospital. It is also a reflection of the very important issues raised by the Senator and the need to move forward together in a different way.