Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and appreciate her response, although it is similar to some of the responses I would have gotten over the past number of weeks. I am in a fortunate position because I have three children and I am unaware of any medical needs they might have. They are very young and I hope they will be fine when it comes to issues like type 1 diabetes, which as the Minister of State said is a severe illness that will affect people for the rest of their lives. When engaging with the HSE and health services in the country, however, these are the types of things that infuriate people. There is the language, including words like "shortly" but there are no definitive or indicative timelines. Communication is ordinarily scant, and that frustrates parents and causes most concern.

I acknowledge that CUH has recently engaged with that new parents' group, which is welcome. A number of parents I spoke to have acknowledged that. Realistically, we must get on with hiring these staff urgently. This has gone on for a number of years. I can remember watching video clips on Facebook going back to 2017 and 2018 on this matter of a lack of pumps. This is what we are talking about today and it is three or four years on from those initial protests but very little has been done.

I understand funding and the posts have been signed off. I ask the Minister of State to follow up with CUH to see what "shortly" means in this context. Is it next week, next month or in six months? Any type of an indicative timeline would be great for those people. As I said, a number of the children are starting school, which is stressful enough in itself, even without having to be tasked with self-injecting on numerous occasions throughout the day. I thank the Minister of State for her time.

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