There is a history of journalists in Ireland uncovering scandals, including the RTÉ payments scandal, the tracker mortgage scandal and the revelations in the Pandora papers. When questionable hip surgeries in CHI hospitals were raised by a whistleblower and an audit was conducted, this Government stayed silent. It stayed silent on the unnecessary hip surgeries until this scandal was exposed and publicised by the journalists at The Ditch. It is a scandal much worse that the kind the Government is usually embroiled in such as the waste of public money or misleading the public on housing delivery. In no uncertain terms, the children of this country were quite simply failed. Parents are still in the dark and worried that their children had unnecessary, traumatic surgeries. What did this Government hope to gain by not informing parents immediately?

Sentiment score: -0.47

Who and what company, Department or hospital benefited from that silence because I cannot make sense of that silence other than a cover up of failures? The expert first appointed to conduct the audit, an NHS consultant surgeon from England, resigned over a lack of clarity and confusion about their work. Was that lack of clarity and confusion by design?

Sentiment score: -0.36

The Minister has to understand that these are questions parents are asking us. Last year, a whistleblower was worried that some of these operations at Cappagh and Temple Street hospitals were purely for financial gain. The whistleblower was proved right when the audit my colleague referenced took a sample of 147 cases from 2021 to 2023 across 14 surgeons and three hospitals.

Sentiment score: 0.12

The draft report found that 79% of hip surgeries in Cappagh were not necessary, 60% at Temple Street were not necessary, 2% at Crumlin were not necessary and all those operations cost about €1,600 each. Those figures are scandalous. We have heard about cowboy tradesmen but does this point to cowboy surgeons? These revelations come at the same time as the completion of HIQA's investigation into the use of non-medical grade implants in several children, which found severe governance and institutional failures at CHI. With those levels of ineptitude and possible wrongdoing going on, and for how long we do not know, we cannot have confidence in the CHI board. The Government's amendment to this Private Members' motion does not inspire confidence, either. It has been a year since this was uncovered and thus far, nothing has been resolved. A year on we are waiting for a final report of the audit and it is just not good enough for the people who are affected. When it comes to the Irish public, and in this case sick children, the Government is moving at a snail's pace. When it comes to creating housing tsars or new super junior Ministers, the Government can move heaven and earth at lightening speed to provide jobs for the boys. I ask the Minister to drop her amendment and back this Private Members' motion. It is the very least those children affected deserve and it is the very least parents and families can expect. These are children who endured life-changing trauma unnecessarily. Just stop and think about that sentence for a moment. Our Proclamation of the Irish Republic declares a resolve to cherish the children of the nation. By God, these children were not cherished by this nation, they were not cherished by cowboy surgeons and they are not being cherished by those who will not stand up for them now.

Sentiment score: -0.23