Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)

I call on the Leader to bring the Minister for Health before the House to discuss a report published this morning which claims that a previously undisclosed form of brutal child birth surgery was used on Irish women for several decades. The document details the practice of pubiotomy, in which the pubic bone of a woman in labour was cut to facilitate difficult births, instead of Caesarean sections, and where symphysiotomies were deemed to be too difficult. The report, written by Marie O'Connor, documents that 1,500 symphysiotomies were carried out in Ireland between 1944 and 1992, but it finds that hardly any of these were carried out as a result of necessity. Most women who underwent these procedures were left with a legacy of health problems, and the Survivors of Symphysiotomy group intend to bring their case to the UN committee on torture. It is important that the Minister comes before the House to discuss this issue and his intention to pursue a public inquiry into the use of symphysiotomy and pubiotomy in Irish public hospitals.

The shortage of junior doctors has already been raised in the House, but the first we heard from anybody in the Government on the issue was when the Minister for Health spoke about it on "The Frontline" last night. It seems that the Government is sleepwalking into a catastrophe on 11 July, with suggestions that the Midwest Regional Hospital in Limerick, which has the second busiest accident and emergency department, will have to close at night. We have also been told that small rural hospitals will be severely affected and that some accident and emergency departments will not be safely manned. On a day when there are 310 people on trolleys across the State, I believe the Minister for Health should also come before to tell us which hospitals will not be safely manned and what action the Government will take to avert this crisis.

It is not acceptable that we have governance by the media and that the Minister addresses us on programmes such as "The Frontline". The real difficulty is that we do not yet have the date for the Minister to attend the House to address these issues. I ask the Leader to address this.