Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get the opportunity to speak and I, too, thank Sinn Féin for bringing this very important motion here before us tonight.

I actually raised the issue of scoliosis and funding almost two years ago with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin. He actually got very agitated and cross when I had asked him because he had made an announcement of €5 million. This was a number of months afterwards because people were still ringing because their children were in pain, they were waiting and they wanted approval to go abroad. There were not being facilitated and, like has been said, a child or anyone in pain, whoever it is, has to be sorted out first.

We have seen again this week where the Government’s priorities are totally wrong, where it was able to fund €800,000 for pets from another country and to provide housing for them and we have children of our own languishing here waiting for some consultant who is on some type of leave. If we have no orthopaedic surgeon or if there are no surgeons, these 327 children who are waiting now should be treated abroad and this should funded with taxpayers’ money. I make no apology for using taxpayers’ money to do that because that is most important. These are the issues we should be dealing with and not the nonsense. I am appealing to the Minister of State and I appreciate what she has done on other occasions.

Regardless of the senior Minister, I am asking the Minister of State to ensure we sort out this problem and that these people up here, good people who have children suffering belonging to them, do not have to come in once more. They were outside the gates this evening and it is hard enough for them to mind their children, let alone to see them suffering agony. Some of these children, if they are not treated today, will outgrow the treatment that could be done for them. Seconds, minutes and hours are vital in cases like this which can end fatally if children are not seen in time. We should join together, regardless of what politics or none, and ensure this problem is sorted out once and for all. I see in some part of the Minister's report that he wants to set up a task force, but I say to hell with the task force. The Minister should sort out the problem.

See this speech in context