Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the visitors to the Gallery, as well as the sixth class pupils of Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School, who were invited here this morning by Senator Bacik. They are welcome and I hope they will enjoy their tour of Leinster House and will see how the House works.

I wish to raise an issue I appear to raise on a monthly if not a weekly basis, namely, the question of symphysiotomy. I ask the Leader to ascertain the current status of the Walsh report and when Members can expect its publication. While Members had several discussions on this question last month, I seek a definite date because it appears to spread out each month and I do not want it to fade away.

In addition, I wish to raise two issues that are of extreme importance to children and which relate specifically to them. The first concerns orthopaedic paediatric services throughout the country and specifically to orthopaedic paediatric services in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, which is supposed to provide centre of excellence level care. Following queries I made to that hospital, I discovered that more than 506 children are waiting for orthopaedic paediatric consultations on that list. There has been no paediatric orthopaedic surgeon in that hospital since January, and to my knowledge, none has been employed there to date. When querying this lack, I have been told there are only eight paediatric orthopaedic surgeons in the country. A debate is needed on this issue. Children are being diagnosed with problems with their hips and cannot afford to wait for one or two years to have such problems rectified. Consequently, this is an urgent matter.

I also wish to mention briefly services for children with Down's syndrome. A presentation was given the other day in the audio-visual room by parents who are concerned about resource hours and care for children with Down's syndrome. I echo their calls that the Minister for Education and Skills should consider ensuring that all children with Down's syndrome would have the maximum of 4.5 hours of resource teaching per week.