Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The budget does not mean anything to parents and children in situations like this. What matters is that our health service can respond in a proper, timely and effective manner to children with particular conditions that require surgery or other forms of medical treatment. That is the bottom line. Investments have been made. Previous Ministers have allocated increased resources and so on. Nonetheless, it is still not good enough that we have children like Adam Terry and others who have simply been waiting too long to get urgent complex surgery done. We need to ensure we have the theatre capacity and the personnel available so that these operations can take place in a timely manner and the appointments for children waiting for spinal surgeries, other surgeries or other appointments happen without delay. I am committed to working on this and ensuring we get it resolved, not just in these cases but for paediatrics in general and children in general so that they would get their operations and appointments in a timely manner.

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