Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I want the Minister for Health and Children to attend the House to discuss the matter of the training of junior doctors in our acute hospitals. A recent report shows that the vast majority of negligence cases in our hospitals are the responsibility of the most junior doctors in our health care system. They do not receive adequate training and supervision. I seek a debate on this, especially in light of the fact there has been a massive drop in the number of applications for junior doctor posts. There is a risk that the level of expertise and experience of junior doctors could drop even further, leading to more adverse outcomes for patients in our health care system. I seek a debate on the issue as a matter of urgency.

On the clerical abuse of children, an issue about which everybody is talking, we should have a debate on what is happening in Irish society, in which children are still being abused. They are being abused in their homes, in some cases by their parents. The abuse is not always sexual; it can be physical or take the form of neglect. Social workers and others in the health service are unable to deal with the crisis. We will read of incidents of abuse in the next few years similar to those about which we read in the British print media of children dying at the hands of their parents or those of a partner of a parent because of neglect. We may look back at what happened during the past 30 or 40 years and the church's role in it, but what is happening in some houses today is equally as horrific and vicious and we are not facing up to such abuse. We are not putting in place the necessary resources to address it or give the necessary support to HSE staff who deal with such cases. We should have a debate on the issue as a matter of urgency, as otherwise we will be reading reports from retired social workers and public health doctors and nurses on the horrific abuses which happened in Ireland in 2009 and 2010, while we talked about something else. We need to debate the two issues together - what happened in the past and what is happening now - as they are equally important.