Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)

I was not in the Chamber for Deputy Brennan's moving contribution but I did listen to it from my office. It made me stop what I was doing.

I was born with a congenital dislocated hip. I have a weakness in one of my hips. I went through some stuff as a child and may have to have more treatment on my hip. Orthopaedic surgery is an especially physical form of surgery, an especially invasive form of surgery and the thought of vulnerable children having surgery they were not supposed to get and that some of them may have had car parts, essentially, inserted into parts of their body does not even bear thinking about. I am glad to hear the Minister commit again to the publication of the report. We really need to come back and look at this again because there are some concerns – the families have concerns – about the audit.

The systematic failures of governance and management at CHI have been repeatedly highlighted by the Scoliosis Advocacy Network and the Spina Bifida Advocacy Network. I did a lot of work with them when I was a councillor and they feel like they are constantly knocking and knocking and nobody is giving them any answers or accountability. It is very clear we need a public inquiry. We can tease out exactly what that will look like but perhaps Scally could serve as a model. There are so many questions we do not have answers to. There are huge issues of concern about this hospital and especially around uninformed consent. Many parents have told me the last thing they want is to have to bring children who are very unwell here to the Dáil to protest. It is really vital we restore clinical confidence here because we have a situation where Tusla now has to mediate between families and doctors because families are terrified of their children having surgery in case the surgery is unnecessary or is the wrong surgery.

We need to be very clear as well that this is systemic rather than a one-off issue. The fear, given the figures quoted in the audit report that looked at a sample of 147 cases over two years, is that they will have to be looked at again and that many more will have to be looked at. There is a fear this problem is more widespread than the media reports we have heard. Like many Deputies across the House, I have people coming to me who are literally terrified. They have, for example, very young children and do not know whether the medical advice they are getting about the treatment their child needs is right for them. That, in 2025, we do not have clinical confidence in an organisation concerning a form of surgery so people can get the treatment their children need is shocking and disgraceful but not surprising given what different advocacy groups have raised, especially about CHI over many years.

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