Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

The motion is about the capacity of Crumlin children's hospital to meet the immediate needs of children who require surgical treatment or clinical assessment. These are issues that the Minister of State with responsibility for children, Deputy Barry Andrews, has managed to avoid addressing. It is what happens during the rest of this year that is of immediate relevance.

The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney's main focus in her speech last night, like that of Deputy Barry Andrews tonight, was on the construction of the promised new national pediatric hospital to be built in 2014. She also talked about seeking to integrate services between Tallaght, Crumlin and Temple Street. She dealt with the vital issues of services currently available in Crumlin children's hospital more as debating points than as the Minister in charge of our health service. Much of what she said was largely a red herring with regard to the current funding difficulties confronting the hospital and the anxiety of parents to ensure that children receive vital treatment.

Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin, is an efficiently run hospital of excellence, providing a continuously developing service to an increasing population of children. Dispassionate talk of cutbacks and financial savings by the Minister is merely a euphemism for depriving children of essential medical treatment and surgery. It is phraseology used to conceal the reality, which the hospital has acknowledged, that there will be longer waiting times for children for vital clinical assessment. Nowhere in her speech did the Minister refer to the closure of St. Joseph's ward - the Minister of State with responsibility for children did not refer to it either - or the closure of a theatre. She did not address the increasing waiting list of children suffering from scoliosis and requiring urgent surgery. Nowhere did she address the impact of €9 million in cutbacks, which will lead to an estimated reduction of outpatient appointments of over 8,000 and 1,100 fewer hospital admissions.

The hospital announced on Monday evening there was a threat of closure of a second ward with 20 beds and a second theatre. The Minister last night welcomed the hospital's announcement that these closures will not take place in July and August, but neither the Minister nor the hospital has guaranteed the closures will not take place in September, with a consequent further dramatic reduction in admissions and essential surgery and treatment.

The Minister does not present as somebody in charge of the health service. In her speech she came across as a semi-detached commentator on the service. While she acknowledged that nothing concerns parents more than the health of their children, she had nothing meaningful to say to parents who are distraught because essential surgery will be delayed or postponed by the cutbacks for which she is responsible. She had nothing to say about the impact of postponement or delay on a child's quality of life or, in the case of scoliosis, about the long-term risk posed on attaining adulthood. Ministerial talk of "efficiency savings" which we heard last night is merely Orwellian newspeak for depriving children of access to essential medical care.

The Minister is a capable debater. Ten days ago she spoke eloquently about the State's failures that were graphically described in the Ryan commission report. This report, she acknowledged, confronts us with an awful truth - the fact that we should be ashamed of our past with regard to our treatment of children. The truth is the Minister should be ashamed of her present with regard to her direct responsibility for depriving children of treatment. She should be ashamed that she is presiding over and defending a health service that has a pediatric hospital of excellence whose staff is being forced to turn children and their parents away from its doors. The motion on the Ryan commission report committed this House to cherishing all of the children of the nation equally. There is a terrible hypocrisy and deceit in this Government and the Minister for Health and Children being party to such a motion and within days betraying its obligation to children in need of medical care.

Members of the previous and current Fianna Fáil-led Governments have engaged in political soapbox oratory about children's rights and their welfare. There has been talk of a constitutional referendum. Most recently, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, climbed onto the soapbox when speaking on the Ryan commission report and pretended that the Green Party had some commitment to a children's rights amendment to the Constitution, despite the fact that the only Green Party member of the children's rights committee, Deputy Paul Gogarty, has attended only approximately four of the approximately 50 meetings of that committee.

The truth is that soapbox oratory is not matched by action. Fianna Fáil, the Green Party and the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney - who, at this stage, has practically re-entered the Fianna Fáil Party - regularly throw shapes but have no commitment of any nature to children's rights, in this case, the basic right of a child in a civilised democratic society to access to medical care.

Yes, we are in the middle of a recession and cutbacks in Government expenditure are essential. In making cutbacks, however, there are values to be protected, principles to be applied and priorities recognised. The utter failure of the Government to recognise that providing essential medical treatment to children must remain a continuing priority starkly illustrates the extent to which it is both politically and morally bankrupt. It is bereft of any recognisable principles or values.

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