Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

On the issue of children's health in this country, the Taoiseach gave a glowing introduction, but we have the ongoing scandals at CHI. The latest is no disclosure to parents of the failure of CHI to operate or give treatment to boys with undescended testes leading to potential infertility and cancer issues. Yet, that did not meet the threshold for disclosure. I do not have time in this interaction but does he agree that this is now systemic? It is not one thing here and one thing there. One of the issues parents have raised is the idea of a partial ratified independent scrutiny-type investigation prism where parents would have monitoring and oversight of experts because we will keep continuing down this road and eventually have to concede a public inquiry.

The Taoiseach also mentioned in his introduction the announcement of a move to a seven-day operation of the health service. That is all well and good, but there is a shortage of 1,000 beds. There is a shortage of thousands of staff. Staff will be spread over seven days, potentially leading to more mistakes, more bad treatment and more people lying on trolleys.

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