Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If the Cabinet committee on health is worth anything at all, it should be concerned, as a priority, with the extreme suffering of people in this country who need urgent medical help. Has the committee discussed the situation of Sarah-Ann Mitchell and the promise made three weeks ago by the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, to meet her mother, Karen? Sarah-Ann is suffering from scoliosis and her situation is deteriorating while she awaits an operation. Karen is now wondering whether the Government has simply decided to ignore her daughter's situation and her own plea that the Government not only help Sarah-Ann but go further by introducing a preventative programme of screening to avoid the same happening to other children in the future.

Another case of extreme suffering is that of Ms Vera Twomey and her daughter, Ava. Yesterday the Taoiseach misinformed the Dáil that no application had been submitted for the use of a medicinal cannabis product to alleviate Ava's suffering. That is not true, as I have double checked with Ms Twomey to confirm. An Irish-registered doctor submitted the application, which is what the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Finian McGrath, told us on 15 November was necessary to be done. Furthermore, the paediatric neurologists who are treating Ava wrote in support of that application, stating their opinion that the product being sought is alleviating Ava's suffering. Why has the Taoiseach moved the goalposts in this regard and why is he playing politics with Ava Barry's very serious condition? Why is he playing politics in terms of progressing the legislation which is clearly necessary given the chill factor that is preventing medical practitioners in this country from prescribing health products that could alleviate the suffering of people like Ava? All this is down to the refusal to lift the ban on those products. Will the Taoiseach ensure the Minister for Health issues a licence for Ava Barry to avail of the product her doctors have requested? Will he, in addition, allow Deputy Gino Kenny's Bill to go to Committee Stage?

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