Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

There is a series of scandals involving the health service which have a particular resonance in County Louth. They include the allegations of abuse surrounding consultant surgeon Michael Shine in Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda which previous Ministers failed to deal with properly or humanely. Tá go leor Airí Sláinte a theip eolas a thabhairt do na h-íospartaigh agus tá gá acu le clabhsúr. Tá cearta na mná seo scriosta. However, I am hopeful the newly elected Minister for Health and Children will see his way to holding an inquiry into these allegations. It is a matter of extreme urgency that he restores full funding to the Dignity for Patients Group

The issue I refer to tonight is symphysiotomy, also a scandal which demands redress. At least 1,500 symphysiotomies were carried out on women in this State between 1944 and 1984 at a time when the rest of the medical profession outside of Ireland were using Caesarean sections. Symphysiotomy is an 18th-century operation that unhinges the pelvis, splitting the pubic joint and its ligaments with a scalpel knife. Another version of this operation severs the bone rather than the joint which results in a compound fracture of the pelvis. Women were rarely asked for their consent and most were never told of the nature of the surgery or its risks or offered the safer alternative of a Caesarean section. The consequence for the victim of this procedure was often chronic pain, incontinence and a lifetime of medical intervention. One child in ten died.

Survivors of Symphysiotomy is a group that has brought together almost 200 women, now mainly in their 60s and older, who have been the victims of this brutal and barbaric surgery. Their accounts of how they were treated in hospital and what was done to them are horrific. Ta an fhírinne de dhíth óna mna seo. These women want truth. They have asked a series of Ministers for Health to provide truth through the establishment of a full public inquiry. The former Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, promised one but it was never established. As Minister, Ms Mary Harney refused to establish an inquiry. Last month in a written reply to my colleague, Deputy Caomhghín Ó Caoláin, the new Minister, Deputy Reilly, avoided answering the question about establishing a public inquiry. He stated he understood efforts are progression to put in place alternative arrangements with the assistance of a university department of public health. Can the Minister specify what is meant by "alternative arrangements"?

In Opposition, the Minister, Deputy Reilly, gave his full support to the demand for a public inquiry at an Oireachtas committee hearing in 2009. Now, as Minister, he has the opportunity to accomplish what he asked the then Minister, Mary Harney, to do. I understand the Survivors of Symphysiotomy group has asked to meet with the Minister. I ask him to agree to meet with the group as quickly as possible and to tell the members he will establish a full public inquiry into the practice of symphysiotomies in Irish hospitals under the care of the State. If, for some reason, the Minister is not able to meet these women, I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, whom I am very pleased to see in the Chamber, if she will meet them. It is a horrific story and it happened in this country, in recent times. These women are growing older and cannot find any closure. I appeal to the Minister of State to use her good offices to bring about a public inquiry and meet these women.

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