Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)

Parents are very worried tonight. They are worried that their child might have had an unnecessary operation. They look to the Government for answers but all they seem to get is an endless commentary. I heard the Minister's commentator-in-chief, her boss, the Tánaiste on the news earlier. He was outraged. He described, in detail, the long lists of all the people whom he thinks should have been paying attention, conveniently forgetting his own role as a former Minister for Health and the role of his own Government in yet another scandal. There was the scoliosis scandal, the CervicalCheck scandal and the children's hospital overrun scandal - the list goes on and on. The questions that parents are asking are fairly simple: could this have been avoided?

The consultant identified by the 2021 internal investigation into CHI, who, it is alleged, was enriching himself or herself at the expense of sick children, may be a pretty poor example of this behaviour but the current system subsidises the failing of the public sector by funding the private sector. The Minister's colleague Deputy McGreehan said earlier that the parents with private health insurance wanted to do their best for their children and get the best care and that is why they have private health insurance. Imagine saying that. That is from one of the Minister's colleagues. With private health insurance, people should get themselves as far away from the public system controlled by the Government as they possibly can. Do right by your kids, and get private health insurance; that is some message for parents. I do not know what the Government is saying to parents who cannot afford private health insurance. I do not know what the message is to them this evening.

The Government has created a system whereby there are two tiers. Mechanisms such as the National Treatment Purchase Fund create perverse incentives. It has been seven years since I met with the then Minister for Health, now Tánaiste.

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I outlined to him a Sinn Féin proposal. It works in other jurisdictions and we had modified it for this jurisdiction. We called it Comhliosta. It was a single, integrated waiting list management system that would remove those perverse incentives and ensure the health service was working at maximum capacity so as to enable a person waiting to get the next best place for them. It would eliminate, to a huge extent, the perverse incentives that, apparently, have been highlighted now. Those perverse incentives have served to let children down.

In my final few seconds, I will say that parents will have a voice in this Chamber because we will ensure they have a voice here.

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