Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste for her reply. The issue of waiting lists is a serious matter. People have been told they will be obliged to wait for more than 18 months for operations. A young girl named Shauna Franklin from New Ross has gone public in the newspapers and has requested - she actually begged - that penny-pinching health chiefs should allow her to have a life-saving operation.

She made the point that money should not be the reason she cannot have a life-transforming operation, which should be carried out sooner rather than later.

The orthopaedic consultant-population ratio is at least two times lower here than in the rest of the Western world; we have approximately one spinal surgeon for 250,000 people. In 2009, to save costs on staff and overheads, the hospital closed 25 beds and one operating theatre. These must be reopened. The consultants say they need extra theatre capacity, extra time and more surgeons in the hospital to deal with the issue. Otherwise, these lists will get longer and children will have to wait longer and suffer more, with further curvature of their spines and their conditions deteriorating. On behalf of these families, not me, I ask the Minister to raise this issue urgently with the Minister for Health to try to get it dealt with. The Minister said that more money is going into the health service. Since 2012, this Government's first budget, €1 billion has been taken out of the health service. It went from €14 billion down to €13.1 billion, but that is not the issue. Money has to be made available to deal with this issue of the patient waiting lists in Crumlin children's hospital.

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