Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Thanks to the Tánaiste and her Government, we have had another week of chaos across the State. It started with chaos in the public appointments process as the Tánaiste tore up yet another election promise and her Government's own rules to give a plum post to a party supporter. Then we saw the scandalous chaos in the housing system first hand, with families degraded and forced into emergency accommodation by the cuts to the social housing budgets and to rent supplement.

Today we hear of the latest episode of chaos in the health system. Cork University Hospital is so overstretched, it has cancelled all non-urgent appointments. Its emergency department is bursting at the seams. People who have been patiently waiting for important procedures for years have been told that they will have to wait even longer. Worse still, we learn that there are 250 children with scoliosis waiting on operations to fix their spines or waiting to see a consultant. Many have been waiting for 15 months or more for vital treatment. Can the Tánaiste imagine what it means to have scoliosis with one's spine bent to 40 degrees, one's organs being crushed and one's entire body in incredible crippling pain?

Would the Tánaiste accept a 15-month wait for her child to see a consultant or to have surgery for scoliosis? Of course she would not. Why, then, does she force these parents to wait and their children to suffer? These children live day to day in chronic pain and their parents watch on powerless as their children suffer because of the decisions of her Government.

I do not at this stage expect clear-cut answers to any of my questions but, before the Tánaiste trots out her usual evasions, I would ask her to think about these children. I ask her what she has to say to them, their parents and their families, who are suffering now because of the chaos the Government has created in the health system.

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