It is a national scandal how children with scoliosis are treated in this country. They are left languishing on waiting lists, not for months but for years in some cases, with their conditions worsening. We have heard promise after promise about bringing the waiting lists down, going back to 2017, when we heard from then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, that there would be a maximum waiting list of four months.

We heard it again from Children's Health Ireland, CHI, in 2022, with the same promise of a four-month maximum wait and the provision of an extra €19 million to provide that. Now it emerges that a large portion of the money has not been spent on that but instead has generally gone into CHI. The Minister, yesterday in the Seanad, and the Tánaiste, today in the Dáil, said there would be an audit and they would look into how this happened, but the buck ultimately stops with the Minister. He was told about it by campaigners. I have seen an email from Amanda Coughlan-Santry to the Minister for Health in July 2022 saying it looks like CHI thinks this money is for everything.

The Deputy's time is up.

The Minister cannot evade responsibility for this.

Hear, hear.

It is simply the case that you can only audit how something is being used when it is in place. We funded a fifth theatre which is in place. There is a second MRI facility in Crumlin which we funded. Those services were not in place in 2022. In fact, they were not in place most of the way through 2023. Most of those big services started in quarter 4 of last year, so it is only from quarter 4 of last year that we can seek assurances that the resources that were put in place are being used for what they are intended.

That is not true. It is nonsense.

We looked into this straight away. I sought assurances from CHI via my Department. We did not get them. I sought assurances via the board of CHI. We did not get them. I then took the unprecedented step of instructing the chief executive of the HSE to send in the HSE's internal auditors.

Two years later. It is crazy stuff.

Please, Deputy Doherty.

Deputy Doherty, in a profoundly dishonest contribution earlier-----

You are being dishonest

-----would seem to be suggesting that we could audit in 2022 the use of an MRI capacity that did not exist until the end of 2023.

Let us stop the money going to the wrong place in the first instance.

The Minister was warned in advance.

I can assure the House-----

The Minister has made the point. Will Deputies please stop disrupting the House? Could people learn to read the clock? Members have adopted a regulation here that there is a minute for every question. Everybody disregards it. They disregard the Chair. They do not respond when they are called on. They engage in most unruly and unacceptable behaviour, I have to say. You would want the patience of Job to put up with some of it.