Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

I am in a small party so I do not get as many speaking opportunities on this issue as other, bigger parties, but I have been in here many times asking for a public statutory inquiry from the word go. I have known Gillian and, particularly, Stephen for just over a year, from before the tragedy with Harvey. We have to learn lessons from this because time and again, on so many issues, parents and relatives have had to campaign for years and years for justice on these questions. I remember saying that we would be in here and we would have a statutory inquiry. It should not have taken the death of Harvey to get this, because I wonder, had he not died, if we would still be here asking for this. We have to be honest about that. What if the whistleblower had not spoken out?

I want to make a quick point about the inquiry and about the waiting lists. Participation in the inquiry has to be mandatory. Importantly, because this has been raised by parents, children who were affected by this should be allowed to testify. Many of them are older now and they should be listened to. That is really important. If issues are found in the process of the inquiry, they have to be dealt with there and then. You cannot just wait until the end of the inquiry because we all know that it could take some time.

Parents have raised this. Does the Minister still have faith in the spinal task force, given how badly it has failed in its role? The paediatric spinal task force group was explicitly created to decrease the waiting lists. It had its first meeting in May 2024 and at that time there were 246 children on the waiting list. In October 2025, there are 223 and another 139 actively waiting for surgery. It has failed in its objective. It was complemented by the paediatric spinal surgery management unit. It is hard to get your head around all of these terms. That was meant to be in charge of managing spinal surgeries. That is the unit that is directly implicated with Harvey falling off the list. Whether it was a clinical error, as the whistleblower claims, or whether it was an administrative error, as a newer report claims, is irrelevant. That group of people still failed to treat Harvey. There are other examples of incompetence there, with ten children who were crossed off the waiting list by somebody under orders. That person apparently was disciplined for that when they were actually just carrying out an order.

Other children have been harmed, as Harvey has.

I also want to raise the issue of staffing, although I will not have time to raise all of the points. It is very hard to fill posts throughout the care system, as we know. Of 52 approved posts, 34 have been filled. Is this another problem that we have? There is also the culture of staffing. Anyone using the term "not fit for a sneeze" should not be working in the health system, or it should be taken up with them how acceptable it is for people to talk like that.

As to what needs to be done very quickly to bring down the lists, two things were raised: either requisitioning space in other hospitals in the private health system, which is packed to the gills with equipment and money, or sending children abroad. Yet, we find that only two children were sent abroad for treatment despite a ministerial order to give all parents that option. It has to be questioned why the lists are still so high after all this time.

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