There is a lot of detail here. At the core of this are boys and girls and young men and young women, some of whom have had surgery and are very distressed about what has happened and, unfortunately, many of whom are still waiting too long for surgery. Every single thing that we have done, will do and are doing in response to this is to serve the patients, in the first instance, and their families. That is the only thing we are motivated by. As I said previously, a vast investment has been made by the Irish people through the Government into these services, including €19 million, 150 extra healthcare professionals who have already been hired, a fifth theatre will open next week and a second MRI machine will come online in the coming weeks. Numerous hospital, medical and surgical beds have already been brought online and fully staffed, and there are more are coming. With this additional activity coming next week and in subsequent weeks, we must see a step change in the number of procedures being performed for these children. Critically, that must translate into us beginning to move as fast as we can to every child being seen within four months, unless it is clinically indicated.

Various issues have been raised. I am going to use the time to go back over some to give absolute clarity. On the inclusion of families and advocacy groups in the terms of reference, the answer is absolutely. They will meet the Taoiseach and myself this week and the reviewer when he begins. The review is independent. The lead reviewer is an independent international expert. He has full discretion to do whatever he wants. He can go as wide and deep as he wants. He will have my full support. He will not report to CHI; he will report to the chief clinical officer of the HSE. I will meet the reviewer and if there is any hint or whisper that anybody is trying to steer this reviewer in any particular direction, within our health services, he can bring that directly to me. I state very clearly that there is a zero tolerance approach to this. This reviewer has full discretion to go where he wants and review what he wants. He will be adequately resourced to do that.

The Crumlin review will be published on Thursday and the families will be met tomorrow. The review is of a small number of children; I have been advised that nothing unexpected was found in terms of additional complications.

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