Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the councillors, congratulate them on their re-election and indeed welcome their guests.

I fully agree with my good friend and colleague, Senator McDowell. It is regrettable that a Bill of this nature has to be brought forward. A group of people have been let down by the State. Commitments were made to them - I have no doubt they were made in good faith - but circumstances, bureaucracy, challenges and all sorts of things meant it did not happen. There was a pandemic, which lessons need to be learned from. We were dealing with something that was unique in our lifetime. Services were shut down. If there was another pandemic, one would hope services would not be shut down.

I am glad the Minister is not opposing this Bill going to Committee Stage. That is very welcome because it is important legislation. Hopefully, we will see a parallel process of dealing with the issue. I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach and the Minister are working together to ensure this happens. I have no doubt of the good faith of either of them in this regard. I think we will see a resolution. You never know - the Bill may not be necessary by the time it passes. I am hopeful that we will see a much fairer streamlined system in place to deal with these situations.

I have spoken to a number of parents of children with scoliosis. I have seen pictures of their feet and their backs. I have seen the dreadful pain and suffering that these young people - citizens of our country - are enduring. All resources of the State need to be deployed to deal with it. If we do not have the expertise in this country, I fully agree that we need bring people abroad to where the expertise is to deal with some of the complex issues. We need to leave no stone unturned to get to grips with this issue.

Sometimes it is necessary for this House to pass legislation that instructs the HSE to do certain things. Politicians give commitments in good faith because they are given assurances by officials, and they are relying on those assurances, so perhaps it is a good thing to put a legal requirement on a specific issue with the officials as well to get this dealt with.

I say to the parents of the children that everyone in this House wants the suffering to be eased, wants to see the treatment provided and wants to see it happen in a timely manner. There is not much else that I need to say except to commend colleagues at the other side of the House on tabling this Bill. Hopefully we will see action as a result.