Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

I extend my comhghairdeas to both Deputies on very significant and joyous life events.

Harvey Morrison Sherratt died on 29 July. Last week I spoke again with his parents, Stephen and Gillian. They are heartbroken and shattered by the loss of their beautiful little boy, and we again send them our condolences and our love. Harvey had a very short life. He was only nine years old when he passed. As the Taoiseach knows he suffered from scoliosis and spina bifida. He waited years for spinal surgery as his condition worsened, and his dad Stephen said, "We watched him deteriorate, cry in pain, struggle to breathe and lose the sparkle in his eye." Harvey was born the year the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, was appointed Minister for Health. In 2017, when Harvey was just one, his parents were told that his ribs were crushing his lungs. That same year Simon Harris promised that no child would wait more than four months for spinal surgery. Over the last eight years that promise has been broken again and again. Harvey did eventually get his surgery last December, but he had waited far too long. He was badly let down. He was, in fact, failed by Government.

Harvey's story is not an isolated case. Such failures are shamefully a hallmark of the Taoiseach's Government. On Monday, Cork mother Antoinette Burke felt she had no choice but to challenge the Taoiseach publicly. Her daughter Katie has cerebral palsy. She has been left waiting 15 years for the surgery she needs. Antoinette said that she first contacted the Taoiseach's office back in 2010 but her pleas went without action. The Taoiseach said in reply, and I use his words, that Katie's case is not "necessarily emblematic" of what families go through in their fight for disability services and treatment, but in fact it is exactly that because Antoinette's hurt and anger is recognised very well by the parents of children with scoliosis and spina bifida. It is emblematic of what they have experienced.

It has been a litany of broken promises from Government. It promised it would do everything possible to end the scandal of children waiting and waiting for spinal surgery, but today that waiting list is growing.

As we speak, there are 135 children on waiting lists without a date for surgery, up from 108 since the start of the year, and 40 of these children have been waiting six months or more just for a date, mind you, not even for the surgery itself. Last year, the Government promised that children waiting more than four months would be given the option to travel for surgery but since then only seven children have had surgery abroad. It is shockingly low. The Government continues to fail these children.

Tá bás Harvey Morrison Sherratt tar éis solas a dhíriú ar theip an Rialtais i leith leanaí na tíre. Caithfidh an Taoiseach cur in iúl dúinn cad atá i gceist aige a dhéanamh chun cinntiú go bhfaigheann leanaí le scolóis nó spina bifida na hobráidí atá de dhíth orthu le práinn. Harvey's battle with scoliosis was a race against the clock. It is the same for each one of these children. The longer they wait, the more complex surgeries they will require. The risk of permanent paralysis is very real. The fear of becoming inoperable is very real. This neglect of children with scoliosis and spina bifida must end and must end now. I ask the Taoiseach directly today to tell those children and their families what he will do now to ensure they get the operations that they require urgently.

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