Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

It is a national scandal how children with scoliosis are treated in this country. They are left languishing on waiting lists, not for months but for years in some cases, with their conditions worsening. We have heard promise after promise about bringing the waiting lists down, going back to 2017, when we heard from then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, that there would be a maximum waiting list of four months.

We heard it again from Children's Health Ireland in 2022, with the same promise of a four-month maximum wait and the provision of an extra €19 million to provide that. Now it emerges that a large portion of the money has not been spent on that but instead has generally gone into CHI. The Minister, yesterday in the Seanad, and the Tánaiste, today in the Dáil, said there would be an audit and they would look into how this happened, but the buck ultimately stops with the Minister. He was told about it by campaigners. I have seen an email from Amanda Coughlan-Santry to the Minister for Health in July 2022 saying it looks like CHI thinks this money is for everything.

See this speech in context