Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday I attended a presentation in the audiovisual room from the Scoliosis Advocacy Network and a spina bifida advocacy group. It was one of the most packed audiovisual room presentations in the five years I have been here. When their stories were told, there was not one dry eye in the room. There were parents with their children in wheelchairs. There were people there on crutches whose spines are twisted. They were given a commitment by the Taoiseach two years ago when he was the Minister for Health. He told them he would meet them. He told them that €9.1 million would be made available for them. That €9.1 million has gone into the overspending somewhere in the HSE and has never been seen since.

Some of these children have to leave the country to get operations to give them a quality of life. One person there yesterday is inoperable and cannot leave the country for any operation. One of them asked me what the definition of madness is and then said it is when the same thing is done over and over again when expecting a different result. This seems to come into play when the Government goes to the country and people vote for the same people all the time. They are told the same things all the time but make no change.

Where is the accountability in the Cabinet when somebody promises someone €9.1 million for quality of life and does not deliver? Where is the accountability from the Taoiseach? There are emails to prove he has been asked for the past 18 months to meet them and he has refused. He tells them various committees will meet them but he has not met them himself. They have the emails to prove this is happening while children are suffering. They want procedures to be put in place to provide for a quality of life. Why does the Cabinet stand by and allow this to happen when it spent €336,000 on a bike shed, €1.4 million on a security shed and €1.2 million on a cabin out the front for RTÉ to put its bits and pieces into? It cannot give €9.1 million to provide a quality of life to children who are suffering.

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