Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

I have several questions. Why are the surgeons who performed hundreds of unnecessary surgeries on children still operating? Surgeon B could go into Temple Street tomorrow and do an osteotomy. Those surgeons are not being prevented from doing that. There is a lot of talk about rebuilding trust and so on, but all that seems very previous to me when, literally, the surgeons who are responsible are still operating in Temple Street and Cappagh. I think they should be suspended, but, at the very least, they should be suspended from carrying out osteotomies.

Is there any ongoing investigation into motive? My understanding is that if a child had private health insurance a surgeon would get around €1,500 for doing one side and another €750 on top for doing the other side. That is a significant incentive that may well have distorted the best health outcome for children and shows the poisonous role of private money in a public health system.

Is the Minister confident that CHI agrees with her when she says there is going to be a full review of every osteotomy done to see whether the operations were needed? I do not mean just to see that there were no complications but whether those children needed those operations. The parents do not need to request that, although, of course, they will need to consent to it. It should, however, be across the board. The Minister might check to see that CHI has the same understanding of the situation as she does.

Why are children from earlier than 2010 being excluded? Is it because they are no longer children?

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