Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Gan dabht, tá scrios déanta ag an scannal i dtaobh cúram sláinte leanaí ar leanaí agus ar theaghlaigh ar fud an Stáit. Tar éis muinín a mhilleadh i measc go leor daoine, tá an Rialtas anois ag gníomhú mar lucht féachana, cé go bhfuil freagracht air dul i ngleic le seo. Tá tuismitheoirí amuigh ansin nach bhfuil a fhios acu go fóill ar dhéanadh obráidí ar a leanaí gan ghá nó gan chuireadh. Níl sé seo maith go leor.

Children's lives have been devastated by the litany of failures in healthcare. The public have been listening in real shock and anger recently. On Tuesday, we had the damning report on how unauthorised springs were implanted into three children during spinal operations. The failure to protect these children is an absolute disgrace.

There is a pattern of broken behaviour when it comes to children's healthcare. It is the same hospitals over and over again. The Government is standing back and acting as a spectator in all of this. We see it in the scandal of hip operations being carried out on children when, as we were told, those operations were not needed at all. Patients only received letters about the scandal in recent weeks but information released to us this week reveals the former Minister, Stephen Donnelly, was informed about this a year ago and the current Minister was briefed in February. We are talking about the possibility of young children put under the knife and their bones being sawed into. It is traumatic surgery, and it happened to children between the ages of one year and seven years. It is beyond the worst nightmare of any parent. The question these parents are asking us is why they were kept in the dark for so long by the Government.

We know that 561 children must now be independently assessed following the audit, which covered the years 2021 to 2023, but that is only two years. What we do not know is how many children are affected. It may be hundreds or even thousands. Just how bad is this? We are being contacted by parents whose children's cases reach back a decade and further. The emails and phone calls keep coming. It looks like 2021 to 2023 is only the tip of the iceberg. It goes way beyond those two years.

One horrified parent contacted us this week. His daughter was a patient in Temple Street in 2016 from the age of one year right up to three years. A consultant diagnosed the child with hip dysplasia and was adamant that she needed surgery. In his words, that surgery would have required "sawing into her hip bone and reshaping the socket". Because the child never showed any symptoms, the parents sought a second opinion from a specialist orthopaedic surgeon in the North. That consultant concluded that their daughter did not need the surgery, as she did not have the condition. He said that he was horrified that a doctor had made such an error of judgment and that he would inquire about it. This was years ago. The parent went on to tell us that the stress they were under during this time was like nothing they had ever experienced before. That is not the only case we have heard of where people got a second opinion, to be told that no condition at all was evident.

Catastrophic failures in children's healthcare have been known for a long time. It is the job of the Government to sort it out, not to sit back as spectators. At what point does the Government take responsibility? When does this come to an end? The Government must get to grips with the scale of the hip surgery scandal. The families deserve answers. They want to know how many children are involved. How far back does this go? When will parents be informed if their child was operated on unnecessarily? Will the Government commit to expanding the scope of the audit beyond the narrow two years, so that all children and parents get the answers they need? How is it that a health Minister has known about this for a year but parents were only told about it last week? Where is the open disclosure? Where is the compassion in that?

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this question. We have all been utterly appalled by the information we received and that we have been made aware of this week.

As the Deputy mentioned, the information in the HIQA report sets out very clearly that a number of springs that were not medically approved were implanted into the bodies of three small children. The springs were corrosive and can be corroded. This is what happened. The devastation, pain and hurt inflicted on these three young children and their families are unimaginable. The Government and the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, are acting and will do everything possible to support those families to understand what has happened, make sure that it does not happen again, and that if any other children are impacted, they will be identified and the children and family will be supported.

Most importantly, the recommendations that were set out in the HIQA report that was published this week are already being acted on. Nine recommendations are for implementation specifically by CHI. Another nine recommendations are specifically for the HSE. There are also further recommendations, and many of them are being acted on.

In addition, the chair of CHI has stepped back, which we welcome. The surgeon responsible, who decided to put these non-surgical instruments into children's bodies, is suspended. We must now ensure that the hospital can operate and that there are changes in the areas where there were failures and proper procedures were not followed.

It is unimaginable that children would be put through surgery for developmental dysplasia of the hip where it is not needed. None of us disagree with that. All of us, especially those of us who have small children, are appalled by even the thought that a child who is already in pain and struggling would have to go through unnecessary surgery.

An audit is taking place. It is being carried out at the direction of the HSE and the Minister for Health. At the moment, there is no information to suggest that any patient safety incident has occurred. At the same time, I will not try to predict the outcome of the audit, nor can anyone else do so. Contact is being made with parents and families of children who have had operations in recent years. I agree that if there are potentially more cases stretching back further and that families of children need to be written to, that is exactly what must happen.

If proper procedures were not followed, we must understand why that happened. If changes need to take place, we must also understand why that is the case, but we cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater. We need to ensure that the board is still in place and that we can still progress the plans for the national children's hospital. We must also ensure that any of the recommendations that have come out of the HIQA report this week can be swiftly implemented. In addition, we must make sure that any recommendations that come from the audit on hip operations can be swiftly implemented.

The Minister for Health has met with the new CEO of CHI. She is working closely with the new CEO and the HSE. She has been very clear that if any further measures need to be taken, including the expansion of any audit or review, or if any changes need to be made in hospitals to make sure that children are safe and protected and that this does not happen to a single other child, that is exactly what she will do. She will be fully supported by the Government in that regard.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The former Minister knew about this since May last year. Parents found out last week. The Minister is absolutely right about how it must feel for parents. Imagine thinking that was your child. The draft report has been published. It found that hundreds of children did not need this operation.

We now have this other information from 2016, which I just put on the record, where a second opinion was sought. The parent talked about how the child was going to go under the knife and have her hip sawed into, a second opinion was sought and they were told the child did not need the operation and did not even have the condition. She is currently enrolled in gymnastics. This is a scandal of huge magnitude. This is not a lone incident. We have put other cases that have come to us on the record where people got second opinions only to be told the exact same thing, that the child did not have the condition, and where the child is now thriving.

The audit is looking at a period of two years and 561 children have to be recalled. If this issue goes back as far as 2014 or 2016, we are potentially talking about thousands of children.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am asking the Government to stop being a spectator. It knew about this issue for a year. Does the Minister believe its colleague, the then Minister for Health-----

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Time is up, Deputy.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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-----should have been open with the families and the families should not have just found out about this last week.

Deputies:

Hear, hear.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Government is not a spectator here. This issue was brought to attention in September 2023. The Department of Health was notified the year after and a subsequent review is taking place and is at an advanced stage. The number of people who have been contacted is increasing. There is further work under way, through an action plan that is currently being drafted, to try to identify any further groups that have not been included and should be included in this review. I agree with the Deputy - we all agree - that if any child has had surgery when it was not necessary and should not have happened, we have to know about it. We have to identify the children and be able to engage with their families. We need to make sure they are supported and that this never happens to another child again. It is the same for the surgeries we learned about this week. Again, the idea that materials that are corrosive when they touch moisture would be put into children's' bodies is absolutely appalling. None of us think this is okay. None of us think what has happened should have happened. Every single one of us on this side and that side of the bench will work together to make sure the children that need to be identified are identified and that measures that need to be taken to improve the procedures in hospitals are taken. People need to be protected at all costs.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I welcome Mr. Liam Conlon, MP for Beckenham and Penge in London, and his companions who are in the Public Gallery. We have a lot of observers in the Gallery, including schoolchildren, and we welcome them all.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Parents are trying to protect their children from an online world and becoming increasingly overwhelmed and anxious about it because their children are carrying around in their pockets probably the biggest threat they will face for many years, and that is just their phones. The Netflix show "Adolescence" brought this danger into stark relief. It showed an extreme case of the tragic consequences of toxic online content. For parents, what the show demonstrated perfectly was the helplessness they often feel. I do not know if the Minister watched "Adolescence" but it was a very tough show to watch, as a parent.

We think our children are safe when they are at home with us but the reality is we often have no idea what they are looking at online. Parents are doing their best and so are schools. In my constituency in Wicklow the It Takes a Village initiative was a huge success. As part of that, all eight local primary schools introduced a voluntary no smartphone code. Under the scheme, parents signed up to not giving their children a smartphone until they went to secondary school. I know other schools around the country are doing similar. Mobile phone bans in both primary and secondary schools are now pretty widespread. I do not know of any school that is not throwing everything at this problem because schools know how serious it is. The difficulty is that toxic content is still there when children go outside the school gate and turn their phones on. That is where we need to protect them.

One study has found it took just two minutes from setting up an account for teenage boys to be fed harmful content. The content was misogynistic, violent, extremist and racist. Within two hours and 32 minutes of setting up that account, nearly 80% of the content being recommended was harmful. The dangerous content is endless and relentless and is being deliberately funnelled into children's accounts on a doom loop. Social media companies are making billions from feeding our children this toxic material and we as legislators are standing by and allowing it to happen.

A new report from the Children's Rights Alliance has warned about a lack of regulation online. I want to deal with one specific aspect of that report, namely, the lack of regulation of recommender algorithms. These are the algorithms that continually feed this toxic material to children in this dangerous online bubble. There is no escape from this endless scrolling of harmful and toxic content in it. Initially, Coimisiún na Meán had included measures to address these poisonous algorithms in the online safety code. This was really welcomed at the time but for some reason those proposals were removed. According to the Children's Rights Alliance, this was a big mistake and their removal reduces safety for children online. Does the Minister agree that these algorithms should be turned off? Does she think it was a mistake for Coimisiún na Meán to remove this regulation from the online safety code?

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Will she work with us across the floor to change this and make sure online spaces are safer for our children?

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Similar to the previous question, the priority for all of us here, and this Government, is to make sure children are safe, be it online or offline or in their homes, bedrooms, communities and schools. It is an absolute priority to make sure children are protected. The world we live in is changing and for young people the world of online, social media and technology is part and parcel of their world in a way it was not for so many of us when we were young. We know the benefits that brings to their lives, our lives, our work and the way we communicate but we can all clearly see, as the Deputy just outlined, the pitfalls, challenges and dangers young people are facing online.

There is much we need to do. The Deputy mentioned Coimisiún na Meán. We are the first country in Europe to establish an online safety commission and the sole focus of the commissioner is to make sure we remove harmful and illegal content. Where companies do not comply, there is a very hefty fine at the end of the day. The fine can be up to 10% of turnover or up to €20 million if content is not taken down or if the company does not comply with the codes of conduct and its own rules. It is important that the online safety commissioner establishes that this code is applied and companies know it will be used.

As Minister for Justice, my priority was making sure our laws were tough. Coco's Law, the first law I introduced, made it illegal to share harmful content online. Unfortunately, where personal content is being shared, we are seeing that the harm this causes young people is insurmountable. I am pleased to say that is something young people are now aware of. We need to make sure the law actually changes behaviour, not that we are penalising young people.

The Deputy touched on the issue of violent pornography. We see more and more of it and access to it is so readily available for young people. The knock-on implications when it comes to domestic and sexual violence are horrific and we see this at a much younger age. That is why we need to make sure that in everything we do, we are talking to young people and engaging with them.

I watched "Adolescence" and while there were certain elements of every single episode that made all of us stop and think, one of the things that stood out to me the most was the second episode when the police officer was speaking to his son in the school and the son said that he did not get it, this is what they were saying to each other, this is what it means. We need to talk to young people. We need to understand how they are communicating with each other. We need to teach them how to deal with certain types of content and engagement. I agree, insofar as possible, that we need to protect young people from it as well.

I fully support the smartphone ban in primary schools. It is absolutely necessary. I do not think any child before secondary school age should have access to social media. There is a role for all of us parents to make sure that when a child leaves school and comes home they are not on social media at night, that they are not in their bedroom able to access who knows what and that there are controls on any apps they are using. We also need to make sure that in our schools and through our education systems we are providing that support and engaging with young people. In that regard, a lot of programmes are already being rolled out through Webwise and the Department of Education.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I agree there is a role for everybody in this. Parents are playing their part. Schools are playing their part. I know incredible teachers who are doing everything they can to address this issue. We need the Government to play its part.

I acknowledge the work the Minister did on Coco's Law. She spoke about making sure it is illegal to share graphic or toxic content. We are allowing the social media companies not only to share that content but also to promote it. Not only are they promoting it, they are making billions from feeding this to our children and creating this really toxic environment in which our children are growing up. No matter what we do as parents or what the schools do, if children are continually seeing this content for hours every day, it will seep into them. We need to stop this at the social media level.

We need to make sure that the content providers are held accountable for it and they need to turn off the algorithm. Does the Minister agree that those algorithms need to be switched off?

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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From the Government's perspective, our view, my view and the view of the Minister for communications is that the era of self-regulation is over and it has to be over. The Online Safety Commissioner needs to ensure - I know that she will - that our strategies and the commission's strategies focus on what is actually happening here and that includes algorithms. I fully agree with the Deputy that these need to be dealt with. The impact that the rabbit hole, or the doomscrolling as I have heard it referred to recently, is having not just on young people's concentration and their ability to focus but where it is leading them and where it is taking them is absolutely detrimental. I fully agree with the Deputy. I know that the Minister for communications will meet with all the social media companies in the weeks ahead.

It is obviously closely engaged with the Online Safety Commissioner. I, myself, have spoken to her. I will certainly be making sure that our engagement through education is absolutely front and centre of the work I do. However, we need to make sure that we are dealing with every element, including how we support parents to deal with this at home, how our schools and teachers make sure that the programmes we are rolling out are helpful for children and how we make sure that at the end of the day the social media companies that are not engaging, not taking down content and not sticking to the codes of conduct are either fined or that there are even greater repercussions.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The renewed slaughter in Gaza has now claimed hundreds more lives since Benjamin Netanyahu broke the ceasefire on 18 March. In that time we have seen the overall death toll from Israeli attacks break 50,000, the UN Human Rights Council reporting on the destruction of maternal and reproductive healthcare facilities and now another war crime with the massacre of Red Crescent medical workers. The lies that were told by the Israel Defense Forces about the circumstances of their deaths have now been revealed.

The renewed killing by the Israeli Government has entirely undercut its justification of the war in seeking to free hostages, a point made clear by the tens of thousands of Israeli citizens demonstrating against the broken ceasefire. In the recent past Ireland had taken a leadership role within the EU. We led in the call for the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. We participated in the ICJ case on the occupation that was decided last July. In May of last year we finally recognised the State of Palestine. However, that active role has changed since the US presidential election and particularly since the general election here.

I put it to the Minister that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have made a conscious choice that Ireland will take no more political leadership on Gaza in the lifetime of this Government. I put it to her that the Government will never pass an occupied territories Bill - not the comprehensive version that has already cleared the Seanad, and not the weak watered-down version proposed in the programme for Government. In the face of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide, we should be redoubling our efforts, but the Government is stepping back. It is time for honesty now. We know what is happening in Gaza is a monumental crime. Does our country still stand for a world in which powerful states cannot trample over human rights and extinguish thousands of lives or do we allow this new fear created by global strongmen to overpower the deep-seated humanitarian instincts of the Irish people?

If I am wrong in my belief that this Government will take no more political steps to support Palestine, I ask the Minister to tell me how she can prove to me that I am wrong. Once committees are established, I ask her to commit here today to a Committee Stage debate on the current occupied territories Bill and let the Opposition bring forward amendments to deal with issues that have been raised. If she is not prepared to do that, can she at least tell us when the Minister for foreign affairs will bring forward the Government's watered-down version of the occupied territories Bill for debate in this House so we can at least assess what benefit, if any, it can bring to pressurising Israel to stop its slaughter?

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. At the outset I acknowledge his role and leadership in the previous Government in supporting the previous Government so that Ireland was to the fore in supporting Palestine and supporting a two-state solution while calling for the unconditional release of hostages. However, I utterly reject his assertion that this Government has in any way changed in that position or that view. I assure him, other Deputies in the House and every other person listening that this remains an absolute priority and is central to our foreign policy in the Department of foreign affairs and in the work that we do as a Government. In fact, this issue will be raised at the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Monday which the Tánaiste will attend and where they will engage with Palestinian authorities. The Tánaiste will be relaying our very clear commitment to a peaceful solution, a two-state solution and the absolute need for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza but also the unconditional release of hostages.

Like the Deputy, I am also utterly appalled by the resumption of air strikes by Israel and I utterly condemn that. I utterly condemn the murder of aid workers and hospital workers in recent weeks, including people with bullet wounds who were found with their hands bound. These were not people who were shooting at anyone; these were aid workers who were there to protect people. Really, this is a war on children. In the first week after air strikes resumed, 1,000 children were maimed or murdered and thousands more are at risk now. Millions are at risk of starvation. Our priority and our focus have not changed and will not change.

The Deputy will ask what we have done. In recent weeks and months alone, we have given €20 million more in funding to UNRWA. Even though it is not being allowed at the moment, this is the only organisation that we know can support Palestinians. That is on top of the €72 million in funding that has previously been provided to protect.

The Deputy mentioned the ICJ case. The Attorney General made an interjection and as part of that following the ruling, on 28 May last year we recognised the State of Palestine. We have been constantly pushing forward when other countries are pushing back. We have worked collectively with our colleagues in Europe, in particular Spain and Norway. We have used our platforms, in European Councils, elsewhere on the international stage or in the visits that have happened in recent weeks and months to make our position absolutely clear: what is happening is wrong. The murder of innocent children and civilians is wrong. The resumption of air strikes is wrong. The preventing of humanitarian aid into Gaza is wrong. The fact that hostages have not been released is utterly wrong. I condemn Hamas and the fact that it is continuing to cause this, and continuing to inflict pain and harm.

Our focus must be on making sure that the ceasefire deal, which brought about some bit of reprieve and a stay and a pause for the millions of people, is resumed and put back in place so that aid can be immediately resumed to the millions of people who are suffering and that the hostages can be released.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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We see slaughter in Gaza every single day. In light of that, it is not enough to rely on the things we did last year. The occupied territories Bill is a concrete act that fulfils our obligations under international law - legal obligations that were made clear to us last July by the decision of the International Court of Justice. Three weeks ago, just down the hallway, the UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese told me and other Members of the Oireachtas that if things keep going this way, it will be the end of Palestinians in Palestine. Those were her exact words. We do not need to look at the images on our screens. We have been warned in this very building what is at stake for the people of Palestine.

However, in the face of mounting atrocities the Government's response is to step back from the leadership role. This is most clearly demonstrated by the fact that this Government will never pass any occupied territories Bill.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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It is in the programme for Government and we have said very clearly that we will implement it. The Tánaiste will meet with Senator Black in the coming days. Senator Black is the Member of the Seanad who brought forward this Bill. She is very clear that we need to get this right and that this is not straightforward. The Deputy is right: it is because of the ruling of the ICJ that the situation, the dynamic, we are working in has changed and that we are now able to bring forward this legislation but we need to get it right. We need to make sure that there are not unintended consequences and that the objective of the Bill is to help to bring about a lasting peace and solution. That must continue to be our focus and our priority.

As referred to earlier in the week, with the hatred that has now been instilled in so many people, it is difficult to see a solution or a way forward, but we must keep that focus. We must keep that ambition and that priority. In Luxembourg on Monday when this is discussed at the meeting of the European Foreign Affairs Council, that is exactly what the Tánaiste will be doing. That is exactly why he travelled to the Middle East recently, not just to engage with our soldiers who are there on peacekeeping missions, but to make it clear that our objective is to work with every single person here to try to bring about a peaceful solution and to end the suffering of millions of people.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Information released to Aontú in response to a parliamentary question in recent days has shown that in the last three years, Children's Health Ireland has cancelled more than 160 operations for children in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals due to the lack of intensive care beds.

These are cancellations for very serious operations for children who are very sick. Nine of these cancellations were for heart operations for children. Ten cancellations were for children needing serious orthopaedic surgery. There are just 23 paediatric intensive care beds in Our Lady's Hospital, Crumlin, and just nine in Temple Street. Many of these children and their families have waited years for what in some cases is lifesaving surgery, only to get the heartbreaking news that the surgeries have been cancelled.

I repeat that there have been 161 cancelled surgeries for children in just the last three years. It is an incredible figure. There was no clinical reason for the cancellation of these surgeries. The surgeons were there and they were ready. The operating theatres were ready. The equipment was ready. The very sick children were fixed for the surgery but there were simply no beds for these children to recover in. It is an absolute scandal. We have just come from Covid-19 when the talk was about the necessity for intensive care beds in this country.

Children's Health Ireland, CHI, has been in the news for many other reasons in the last couple of weeks. There was the implementation of unapproved non-CE marked springs, which were put into children, and which were made from corrosive material resulting in significant pain, suffering and stress for those innocent children. That alone is a scandal of enormous proportions. In the last two weeks we have heard reports of hundreds of unnecessary hip operations carried out in two Dublin hospitals, with 79% of the hip operations carried out in Cappagh hospital and 60% of the operations carried out in Temple Street simply not meeting the threshold necessary for the surgery. As the Minister can imagine, those parents are sick to the stomach about what happened. When the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, was Minister for Health, he promised that no child would have to wait for more than four months for a scoliosis operation, yet today children are currently waiting for up to three and a half years for that operation. Fine Gael stated that they wanted to make Ireland the best country in Europe to be a child, but presumably that does not apply if they are sick, if they are waiting for surgery, or if they need a scoliosis operation. How does a child developing a curvature in his or her back of up to 125° achieve that goal? How does an unapproved, experimental spring put into a child achieve that goal? How does an unnecessary operation for a child achieve that particular goal?

We in Aontú have raised the issue of accountability so many times in this Chamber. Why can the Government not move from recognising there is a crisis to implementing accountability? Will the Government remove the board of CHI or will it allow them to remain in place after such devastation to so many children?

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The knee-jerk reaction or response to anything that goes wrong - to call for people to be sacked or removed from a board - does not help anybody. It does not actually change the fact that we need to make progress, that we need people in place to be able to make sure the children's hospital can open, and that we need to make sure any recommendations coming from the reports we have discussed today can be implemented in order that there is accountability. Sacking everybody makes absolutely no impact and has no positive impact on any of the young people the Deputy mentioned and their families.

The Deputy never recognises or acknowledges that significant investment has gone into our health services in recent years. Our health budget has increased by nearly 40% in recent years. There will always be challenges we need to overcome and areas where we need to do better, but a 40% increase in our budget shows that this is an absolute priority for this Government. Some 28,000 people have joined the health workforce in recent years. More people than ever are being treated by our healthcare service. Progress is being made on waiting lists. We have more people in hospital beds than ever before and more people who are getting hospital beds than ever before.

When it comes to scoliosis and spina bifida, I acknowledge that this is the most traumatic and difficult experience that any young person could go through. This is their life and what they have to deal with, which is why it has been a focus and a priority for this Government. In recent years - this is included in the 40% I have mentioned - some €30 million has been allocated to help to tackle waiting lists for spinal procedures. Last year alone, some 513 spinal procedures were completed, which is a 10% increase on the year before. Of course we want to do more, but there has been a 35% increase since 2019. We are making progress. It is important for the Deputy to acknowledge that there is progress and that investment is being made. A dedicated paediatric spinal surgery management unit was established in CHI just last year, in 2024. It is working to co-ordinate services, implement strategies, drive continuous improvement and address any challenges. On top of this, we have a ring-fenced theatre in Crumlin that provides additional capacity for spinal surgeries, as well as outpatient clinics that are taking place where spinal outpatients are being seen. A lot of work is happening but there is a lot more we need to do.

With regard to what happened this week and the HIQA report, it is absolutely appalling. It is appalling that equipment or devices that are not medically approved and that are corrosive would have been put into the body of anybody, let alone a small child. Every single thing that can be done, in terms of the overhaul of structures of management systems that are in place but need to be changed and improved, will happen. The Minister for Health is working very closely with the CEO of the hospital, the HSE, the Department of Health and the Government to make sure that is the case. This is a priority for this Government. Supporting and protecting young people and children and making sure they get the very best healthcare, which they are entitled to and they deserve, will continue to be a priority for this Government.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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I put it to the Minister that these are not "challenges", these are hundreds of children who have been damaged because of wrongdoing in these hospitals under the Government's remit. The word "appalling" does not equate to accountability. They are not the same thing. The Minister standing up here and saying how shocked she is does not actually change things at all. A mother was on "Prime Time" during the week discussing the fact that numerous reports have been written regarding similar situations, with dozens of recommendations, but have simply never been implemented. The parents do not trust the Government to get this right. The Minister spoke about this being "a priority". A new national children's hospital is being built. A representative of CHI said in an interview that there will be more intensive care beds in that hospital, but in the same interview could not say that those beds will actually be opened when the doors of the hospital are opened. The interviewee said that they do not know exactly when those new beds will be open. There is no clear timescale for those beds to be open, to change the situation where hundreds of children are having their operations cancelled. Give us a clear timescale today and we will believe the Minister.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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There will certainly be no timeframe if the Deputy wants the entire board sacked and removed. We would have to replace them and then make sure that progress can somehow continue without a board. We cannot make progress in opening any hospital bed, opening any acute hospital or having any surgery in the new hospital if we do not have a board. Let us be realistic here. What do we have to do?

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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The hospital is delayed.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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We have to act on the facts that we know.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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It is four years.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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A report that was commissioned by HIQA clearly states that children were operated on with medical devices that should not have been used. We are acting. The persons responsible - we all have responsibility here in this House - including those who carried out the operations and those who decided to have operations on young children who did not need them, have to be held accountable too, and they will. Any changes that need to be made in the hospitals, in the management, in the structure and in the procedures that clearly led to what has happened here will be made if they have to change and when they need to change. The Government will fully support the Minister, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and the hospitals to make sure that happens . Simply removing a board and simply trying to delete a really important part of this is actually going to delay things.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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It is business as usual.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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It is not going to help a single person the Deputy has mentioned.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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It is business as usual.