Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)

Children's Health Ireland is in crisis. Another three members of the board have resigned today. A succession of scandals has cast serious doubts on its capacity to provide quality healthcare to children in this country. A common thread in each of the scandals is an almost complete absence of clinical oversight. Medically questionable and unethical practices proliferated under the noses of highly paid clinical directors and management teams at CHI and Cappagh. The HSE and the Department of Health were either kept in the dark or did not notice. Clinical oversight and governance systems failed. Children were not protected. They suffered extremely painful hip surgeries. It is unthinkable to think that any child would be put through this trauma unnecessarily.

We now need all the facts and full transparency and accountability from Children's Health Ireland, but can we trust it to provide that? It sat on a 2021 report that was highly critical of one of its consultants. That report found the consultant earned more than €35,000 by keeping very young children on a waiting list for years. They were eventually treated using the NTPF when they were transferred to the consultant's weekend clinic, but they could have been treated by other doctors years earlier. When all of this was discovered, it was kept a secret and the consultant was allowed to retire and sail into the sunset.

The final audit of hip surgeries confirmed that nearly 80% at Cappagh and 60% at Temple Street could have been unnecessary.

The high prevalence of surgery at these hospitals was not a secret. The parents of some of the children were told they would not have been operated on if they were at Crumlin. At the time, they thought they were lucky. They were led to believe their children were getting cutting-edge treatment that was not available at Crumlin. Now, they fear their children suffered the agony and trauma of surgery unnecessarily.

The Taoiseach has said himself that the era of consultants being utterly unaccountable is meant to be over. The system of clinical directors was introduced in 2008 - nearly 20 years ago - but is it working? None of the issues identified in Children's Health Ireland was detected by clinical oversight. They came to light because of whistleblowers and a random review. Even when potential fraud and abuse of waiting lists were detected, the wagons were circled. The HSE, the Department of Health, the National Treatment Purchase Fund and the Medical Council were never notified.

Will the Taoiseach confirm that all of the children operated on will have access to an independent clinical audit by international experts? Will the Government commission a review of the system of clinical directors to determine why alarm bells did not ring?

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