I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for facilitating us.

Sentiment score: 0.36

I want to begin by acknowledging the great work done by staff in Children's Health Ireland, CHI. However, in the past month details of an unpublished report conducted on the clinical department of CHI at Crumlin hospital has been put into the public domain. One of the revelations in the report was a finding of several inappropriate and unnecessary NTPF-funded Saturday clinics conducted by a consultant. The report details how a consultant was facilitated to set up hundreds of appointments for patients who did not need to see him. He then placed these patients on his own waiting lists, which resulted in patients waiting twice as long as they would have otherwise. The report states that 95% of those patients could have been accommodated during normal working hours, that is Monday to Friday, without the need for NTPF funding. How confident is Minister that the audit will be able to identify this type of misuse of funds?

Sentiment score: 0.16

I thank the Minister. There has been a significant increase in Saturday clinics over the past years. An example of this concerns scopes. More than 10% of scopes are now done on a Saturday but the distribution is very uneven across hospitals. Of the scopes carried out in Cavan hospital, one third are now done on a Saturday, that is 900 out of a total of 2,700. However, hospitals are still conducting fewer scopes than they were in 2019 when all services were provided between Monday and Friday. Waiting lists did not reduce during 2024 but they have reduced this year. The system may be working and I do not doubt Cavan hospital in that regard. However, the CHI revelations are startling and there is real concern that this may be the tip of the iceberg. There is also concern that the quality might be suffering in some of the Saturday clinics or productivity could be higher during Monday to Friday. How is the Minister ensuring that hospitals are preventing the misuse of public funds and controlling spending and waiting lists initiatives? What is the breakdown of weekend hospital activity between the new public consulting contract and the fee paying service clinics? What action does Minister intend to take if she is not happy or there are unanswered questions when Bernard Gloster and the HSE bring forward the audit report?

Sentiment score: 0.04

Will the Minister detail the steps she has taken to improve governance and accountability at Children's Health Ireland and will she publish the unpublished review of a department at CHI at Crumlin? Will she outline the steps she has taken to address the issues highlighted in the report?

Sentiment score: 0.22

There has been scandal after scandal at CHI. There were inappropriate spring implants, possibly hundreds of unnecessary hip surgeries and now a scathing leaked report of an examination of a clinical department at Crumlin hospital. The report has raised exceptionally serious concerns and it follows the Boston review, the HIQA review into unauthorised springs and the hip dysplasia audit. We would not know about the first two reports if it were not for whistleblowers who came forward, and the third report was released by HIQA. The approach from CHI has been unacceptable. It has stonewalled and refused to release the report in full. It has also refused to report the misuse of public funds to the Garda. The HSE took doing this into its own hands earlier this month. The HSE said CHI did not even share the report with it until after it was leaked. At a time when we hope to move into the new children's hospital in the coming two years, confidence and trust in CHI has never been lower. What steps is the Minister taking to address this? In terms of the new board members coming in, how does she intend to hold the previous board members to account?

Sentiment score: -0.15

There are still 226 children waiting on spinal surgery. Of these, 34 children have been waiting longer than six months. There are also many more who were removed from waiting lists because they were left for so long that they have become inoperable. One of these is a young lad called Mikey. He is from Mayo and is aged 16. He has severe scoliosis. Last September Mikey's parents were told by CHI that he is not fit for surgical intervention. The letter did not indicate any pathway for Mikey. His parents have asked many times for a second opinion abroad. Last month my colleague Deputy Conway-Walsh, who is from the county, raised this with the Taoiseach and he stated he was of the view that a second opinion should be facilitated. The family has had no update from CHI in this regard. Will the Minister make sure that Mikey and children like him get the second opinion they need?

Sentiment score: -0.03