Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, once again I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge that this is a cause of great anxiety for a lot of parents, families and vulnerable children attending these services. A comprehensive patient safety review and assurance process has been commissioned into the paediatric orthopaedic surgery service, and there is a Medical Council complaint that is currently being considered. An expert from the UK, Mr. Selvadurai Nayagam, has been commissioned to lead an external review following identification of a number of specific clinical and patient safety concerns. The concerns related to clinical outcomes of some complex spinal surgery, including what appears to be a higher than normal incidence of post-operative complications and infections, as well as two serious surgical incidents.

It is important to say that we do not have all of the facts yet and therefore it is important that we do not jump to any conclusions at this stage. It is why the Minister for Health and the HSE have sought this external review. It was clear that they did not feel that the existing reports were sufficient and they did not, for example, report the use of these non-CE marked metal springs. It is a matter of concern that this did not come up in the two reviews that were done and which have now been published. As the Deputy knows, two reports, internal and external, have been commissioned. The Minister and chief executive of the HSE made it very clear that the initial position that was adopted by the hospital groups, which was that the reports would not be published, was not acceptable. The Minister for Health will make statements later today and I understand there will also be a joint Oireachtas committee hearing that will allow further discussion of this.

To answer the Deputy's detailed question on when the Government knew, if by "the Government" he means the Cabinet, there has been no Cabinet memo on this so far. There may be one forthcoming. I cannot answer definite questions about timelines within the HSE or the Department of Health but I am sure they can. On the issue the Deputy raised with me, I will have to check. Our standard practice, when something is raised with me in this Chamber on any given day - and many things are - is that it is then passed on to the relevant Minister for a reply.

The Deputy asks a fair question. I first heard definitively about non-medical devices being used in surgery in the past week or so and was shocked.

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