Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

The controversy surrounding Children’s Health Ireland has somehow managed to escalate yet again over the recent days. Instead of focusing on the vital task of caring for our children, CHI is presiding over an increasingly chaotic string of failures, failures with devastating consequences for sick children and their families. The Taoiseach mentioned breaches of trust, which are clearly evident too. We have had the use of unapproved non-surgical springs in children's surgery, and horrifically the carrying out of unnecessary pelvic bone operations on children to the desperate distress of parents and the children themselves as they learn what has gone on.

The Taoiseach quoted the stark figures with 60% of surgeries at Temple Street not having been clinically indicated. Yet more horrors were outlined by John Mooney at the weekend.

He described the abandonment of vulnerable children, actually described by staff as orphans, left stranded in hospital receiving substandard care long after best practice indicated they should have been moved on; the carrying out of specific treatments, apparently for the personal profit of certain clinicians; and a bitter and toxic internal culture within CHI described as "chaos behind closed doors". It all begs the question: what on earth is going on within CHI? Who is actually in charge? That last is a question that has become even more urgent as we learn that three more board members resigned just today; a drip-feed of resignations, we might say, after the stepping down of the chair in April.

By our count, there have now been four externally commissioned reviews of the care provided by CHI in the past three years, which show failures of culture and failures of clinical care and management that are systemic and endemic. What is most important now is that children and their families will see accountability and justice for the failings of the past. We need an assurance that children will receive the best care today and into the future. We need to see accountability, not just individual heads rolling and nothing else changing. We need to ask and answer serious questions about whether CHI has capacity as an entity to do its job. This requires the Taoiseach’s urgent attention and that of the health Minister. We welcome the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill’s engagement on the issue over the weekend - I listened carefully to her interview just an hour ago on the radio - but we need decisive action. As my colleague Deputy Sherlock, our health spokesperson, said, CHI must now come under the direct control and oversight of the HSE. Until that happens, it is very hard to see accountability. What we have now is the ridiculous situation whereby the HSE is answering questions about scandals for which it does not have direct responsibility.

In December of last year, The Irish Timesreported that former health Minister, Stephen Donnelly, had sought legal advice on whether the State had power to take over the running of children’s hospital services in Dublin, and that advice was reportedly sought due to concern over issues around scoliosis surgery waiting lists, delays in appointments and outrageous overspends with the national children’s hospital. Now, we have these recent very serious revelations. Can the Taoiseach give assurances that there will be real accountability for all the many failures within CHI? What can he say to assure us there will be real change?

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