Gan dabht, tá scrios déanta ag an scannal i dtaobh cúram sláinte leanaí ar leanaí agus ar theaghlaigh ar fud an Stáit. Tar éis muinín a mhilleadh i measc go leor daoine, tá an Rialtas anois ag gníomhú mar lucht féachana, cé go bhfuil freagracht air dul i ngleic le seo. Tá tuismitheoirí amuigh ansin nach bhfuil a fhios acu go fóill ar dhéanadh obráidí ar a leanaí gan ghá nó gan chuireadh. Níl sé seo maith go leor.

Children's lives have been devastated by the litany of failures in healthcare. The public have been listening in real shock and anger recently. On Tuesday, we had the damning report on how unauthorised springs were implanted into three children during spinal operations. The failure to protect these children is an absolute disgrace.

There is a pattern of broken behaviour when it comes to children's healthcare. It is the same hospitals over and over again. The Government is standing back and acting as a spectator in all of this. We see it in the scandal of hip operations being carried out on children when, as we were told, those operations were not needed at all. Patients only received letters about the scandal in recent weeks but information released to us this week reveals the former Minister, Stephen Donnelly, was informed about this a year ago and the current Minister was briefed in February. We are talking about the possibility of young children put under the knife and their bones being sawed into. It is traumatic surgery, and it happened to children between the ages of one year and seven years. It is beyond the worst nightmare of any parent. The question these parents are asking us is why they were kept in the dark for so long by the Government.

We know that 561 children must now be independently assessed following the audit, which covered the years 2021 to 2023, but that is only two years. What we do not know is how many children are affected. It may be hundreds or even thousands. Just how bad is this? We are being contacted by parents whose children's cases reach back a decade and further. The emails and phone calls keep coming. It looks like 2021 to 2023 is only the tip of the iceberg. It goes way beyond those two years.

One horrified parent contacted us this week. His daughter was a patient in Temple Street in 2016 from the age of one year right up to three years. A consultant diagnosed the child with hip dysplasia and was adamant that she needed surgery. In his words, that surgery would have required "sawing into her hip bone and reshaping the socket". Because the child never showed any symptoms, the parents sought a second opinion from a specialist orthopaedic surgeon in the North. That consultant concluded that their daughter did not need the surgery, as she did not have the condition. He said that he was horrified that a doctor had made such an error of judgment and that he would inquire about it. This was years ago. The parent went on to tell us that the stress they were under during this time was like nothing they had ever experienced before. That is not the only case we have heard of where people got a second opinion, to be told that no condition at all was evident.

Catastrophic failures in children's healthcare have been known for a long time. It is the job of the Government to sort it out, not to sit back as spectators. At what point does the Government take responsibility? When does this come to an end? The Government must get to grips with the scale of the hip surgery scandal. The families deserve answers. They want to know how many children are involved. How far back does this go? When will parents be informed if their child was operated on unnecessarily? Will the Government commit to expanding the scope of the audit beyond the narrow two years, so that all children and parents get the answers they need? How is it that a health Minister has known about this for a year but parents were only told about it last week? Where is the open disclosure? Where is the compassion in that?

I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this question. We have all been utterly appalled by the information we received and that we have been made aware of this week.

As the Deputy mentioned, the information in the HIQA report sets out very clearly that a number of springs that were not medically approved were implanted into the bodies of three small children. The springs were corrosive and can be corroded. This is what happened. The devastation, pain and hurt inflicted on these three young children and their families are unimaginable. The Government and the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, are acting and will do everything possible to support those families to understand what has happened, make sure that it does not happen again, and that if any other children are impacted, they will be identified and the children and family will be supported.

Most importantly, the recommendations that were set out in the HIQA report that was published this week are already being acted on. Nine recommendations are for implementation specifically by CHI. Another nine recommendations are specifically for the HSE. There are also further recommendations, and many of them are being acted on.

In addition, the chair of CHI has stepped back, which we welcome. The surgeon responsible, who decided to put these non-surgical instruments into children's bodies, is suspended. We must now ensure that the hospital can operate and that there are changes in the areas where there were failures and proper procedures were not followed.

It is unimaginable that children would be put through surgery for developmental dysplasia of the hip where it is not needed. None of us disagree with that. All of us, especially those of us who have small children, are appalled by even the thought that a child who is already in pain and struggling would have to go through unnecessary surgery.

An audit is taking place. It is being carried out at the direction of the HSE and the Minister for Health. At the moment, there is no information to suggest that any patient safety incident has occurred. At the same time, I will not try to predict the outcome of the audit, nor can anyone else do so. Contact is being made with parents and families of children who have had operations in recent years. I agree that if there are potentially more cases stretching back further and families of children need to be written to, that is exactly what must happen.

If proper procedures were not followed, we must understand why that happened. If changes need to take place, we must also understand why that is the case, but we cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater. We need to ensure that the board is still in place and that we can still progress the plans for the national children's hospital. We must also ensure that any of the recommendations that have come out of the HIQA report this week can be swiftly implemented. In addition, we must make sure that any recommendations that come from the audit on hip operations can be swiftly implemented.

The Minister for Health has met with the new CEO of CHI. She is working closely with the new CEO and the HSE. She has been very clear that if any further measures need to be taken, including the expansion of any audit or review, or if any changes need to be made in hospitals to make sure that children are safe and protected and that this does not happen to a single other child, that is exactly what she will do. She will be fully supported by the Government in that regard.

The former Minister knew about this since May last year. Parents found out last week. The Minister is absolutely right about how it must feel for parents. Imagine thinking that was your child. The draft report has been published. It found that hundreds of children did not need this operation.

We now have this other information from 2016, which I just put on the record, where a second opinion was sought. The parent talked about how the child was going to go under the knife and have her hip sawed into, a second opinion was sought and they were told the child did not need the operation and did not even have the condition. She is currently enrolled in gymnastics. This is a scandal of huge magnitude. This is not a lone incident. We have put other cases that have come to us on the record where people got second opinions only to be told the exact same thing, that the child did not have the condition, and where the child is now thriving.

The audit is looking at a period of two years and 561 children have to be recalled. If this issue goes back as far as 2014 or 2016, we are potentially talking about thousands of children.

I thank the Deputy.

I am asking the Government to stop being a spectator. It knew about this issue for a year. Does the Minister believe her colleague, the then Minister for Health-----

Time is up, Deputy.

-----should have been open with the families and the families should not have just found out about this last week?

Hear, hear.

The Government is not a spectator here. This issue was brought to attention in September 2023. The Department of Health was notified the year after and a subsequent review is taking place and is at an advanced stage. The number of people who have been contacted is increasing. There is further work under way, through an action plan that is currently being drafted, to try to identify any further groups that have not been included and should be included in this review. I agree with the Deputy - we all agree - that if any child has had surgery when it was not necessary and should not have happened, we have to know about it. We have to identify the children and be able to engage with their families. We need to make sure they are supported and that this never happens to another child again. It is the same for the surgeries we learned about this week. Again, the idea that materials that are corrosive when they touch moisture would be put into children's bodies is absolutely appalling. None of us think this is okay. None of us think what has happened should have happened. Every single one of us on this side and that side of the House will work together to make sure the children that need to be identified are identified and that measures that need to be taken to improve the procedures in hospitals are taken. People need to be protected at all costs.