Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo ghlór féin a chur leis na glórtha eile anseo inniu ag déanamh chomhbhróin le clann na mná óige a fuair bás i nGaillimh.

As a father whose children were all born in University Hospital Galway, I was taken aback by the news last night of this terrible tragedy and would like to convey my condolences to the families in question. I have been in contact with the management of the hospital who have said they cannot say anything at the moment for legal reasons, which I appreciate, but I hope we have a full and frank debate on the issues when all the information is available to us. I join in calls for the recommendations of the expert group to be made available. The Minister has the report and he must report to the European court on the issue by 30 November as part of its proceedings. It would be pertinent for us to have a debate before that happens and the report should be made available to us in order that we can debate in a measured way on all the issues involved.

While there were many presentations this morning on pre-budget issues, I attended an excellent briefing on equality budgeting in Ireland. I have called on a number of occasions for the Government to equality proof and poverty proof budgets. I appreciate we had a good debate with the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform yesterday, but it is difficult to discuss all the issues in a three minute contribution. Equality budgeting is worthy of a debate. We were informed earlier about models of equality budgeting in the North, Scotland and other European states, which ensure the views of groups in society with an equality agenda are taken on board when a budget is being framed. I call for a debate on equality budgeting.