Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The report on failures to ensure the safety of already-vulnerable children at Temple Street hospital makes for shocking reading. It is no surprise that the HSE commissioned an independent external review. What is even more shocking is that the families and advocates of children affected by these failures were excluded from having any input into the review's terms of reference and have not even seen them. How are the parents of such vulnerable children going to have any trust or confidence in a review conducted by the very people who allowed the issuing of unauthorised devices to take place? How can any family have faith in a process into which they and their children’s advocates were not allowed any input?

How was this allowed to happen? When did the Minister know? More seriously, how did the HSE and CHI keep it quiet for so long? My heart breaks for the children affected and their families, whose trust has been broken and who have been failed yet again by their exclusion from the review process, adding to the suffering of these children and of those languishing on long waiting lists for spinal surgery, including for scoliosis. The four-month target set by the previous Fine Gael Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, is a dim and distant memory now. There cannot be a hands-off approach. The Minister has to act now and ensure that children waiting on urgent spinal surgeries are not forgotten because of this scandal. I call on the Government to recommence the treatment abroad scheme urgently for those children who are able to travel in order to help address the large backlog in surgeries owing to this scandal. The Minister stated that he did not know why there was such a large backlog. He was surprised.

I call on the Government to publish this report and the review of spinal surgeries at Crumlin hospital so as to give families the clarity they and their children deserve. I call on the Minister to ensure that no stone is left unturned in the interests of full transparency and accountability and to ensure that this scandal is never repeated.

See this speech in context