Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I, along with many in the House, again offer my deepest condolences to Harvey Morrison Sherratt's family, his parents Gillian and Stephen, and to all those who have lost children in difficult and very challenging circumstances. I acknowledge and accept we need to do better in respect of the children of this country, particularly in terms of access to timely healthcare. Optimally, every child should receive treatment and a surgical intervention when it is recommended by the clinicians at the right time. It concerns me that children are waiting much longer than they should be for surgery, particularly spinal surgery for scoliosis. The objective from a Government perspective is that we consistently improve capacity in terms of human capacity - surgeons, anaesthetists and the entire teams that create the capacity in a children's hospital to do the surgery required - and that there is also better governance within hospitals, particularly within CHI. There have been quite a number of reports that have painted a very difficult, to say the least, picture in respect of some aspects of what has happened in CHI but those reports have been commissioned and published.

I understand the anger and frustration felt by many parents and children. Communications between clinicians, hospitals and parents should be a primary consideration and need to improve. There can be many challenges along the way and along the journey of any child who requires hospital treatment and surgery. Notwithstanding expertise and the various specialisms, basic communication with parents is something that can never be relegated as a priority. There have been issues in CHI in that regard.

A fundamental decision has been taken by the Minister for Health to bring CHI under the aegis of the HSE. I support that strongly. It is important in light of what has emerged. I believe the Minister, Deputy Harris, acted in good faith all along in this respect. He made his commitment in good faith based on interactions he would have had with the health authorities at the time. We will continue to prioritise all aspects of this area in terms of surgical capacity, governance and communications between families and clinicians.

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