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TÁNAISTE MICHEÁL MARTIN has said it is clear that the majority of the €19 million fund aimed at reducing children’s spinal surgery waiting list was not used for the purpose intended by government.
In 2022, the Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly allocated an additional 19 million euros to Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) with the main aim of reducing waiting lists for child orthopaedic surgeries, among other services.
However, it has since emerged that the funding was used more broadly by CHI.
Donnelly allocated the funding as part of an ambition that no child would be waiting longer than four months for scoliosis surgery.
It came after a similar pledge in 2017 when his predecessor in the role Simon Harris, now Taoiseach, set the four-month target.
During Leaders’ Questions, Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said the promise had been “broken over and over again”.
“Immediately, both parents and patient advocates had serious concerns that Children’s Health Ireland intended to spend this money differently from the purposes that was allocated to them.”
He said parents raised their concerns multiple times, including in March 2022 – within weeks of the funding being announced.
“Shockingly, it took until February of this year for the Minister for Health to order an audit,” said Doherty.
The Tánaiste said it was not possible to audit the use of millions of euros for child scoliosis services in the immediate weeks after it was allocated.
In an interview with The Journal last December, Donnelly said he was “not satisfied” with the answers from CHI as to why the resources the government funded and allocated have not brought down the waiting list numbers.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Martin said CHI informed the minister that its plan would mean that by the end of 2022 the number of children waiting over four months would be reduced to zero.
“That is what CHI said to the minister and the minister funded the plan on that basis. The investment did result in an increase in the number of surgeries performed but the reduction in the waiting list was modest and was nowhere near what was promised,” said the Tánaiste.
Donnelly did engage on the matter in 2023, said the Tánaiste.
“He did not ignore the issue but engaged directly with spinal surgeons and with advocacy groups. It became clear that the additional resources of €19 million had been allocated far wider than just children’s spinal, or even children’s orthopaedic, services,” said Martin.
The health minister said at the end of last year, he sought assurances from CHI via his department.
“We didn’t get them. I sought assurances via the board of CHI. We didn’t get them. And I then took the unprecedented step of instructing the chief executive the HSE to send in the HSE internal auditors,” said Donnelly.
“It is an absolute scandal. Where is the accountability?” Doherty asked, stating that children were being “forced to suffer in agony without any light at the end of the tunnel” as he accused the health minister of ignoring their pleas.
“These patients, these advocates, these parents reached out to Minister Donnelly and his office over and over and over and over again.
“They told him that this money wasn’t going to be spent on the promise that he gave them and their children. They pleaded with him to investigate this matter two years ago,” said the Sinn Féin deputy.
The Tanaiste said the government’s commitment “is to do everything we possibly can as quickly as we can to reduce waiting lists for children waiting for scoliosis operations”.
Doherty said the within weeks of the money being allocated, the parents and the advocates were telling the minister’s office that this money was not going where it is needed.
“They were begging them to investigate this,” said Doherty, accusing the minister of “doing nothing”.
“Because two years later, you still don’t know where this money is gone,” said Doherty.
Donnelly described the remarks from the Sinn Fein benches as “nonsense” and “totally disingenuous”, adding that he had met families many times.
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Nothing but a group of protesters.
@Sun Rise: sure he doesn’t even know the gender of his own child!
@Buster Lawless: Good man Buster, DHR will be delighted that there are other numpties in the country that he can empathise with.
@Paul Linehan: sure why would anyone vote for him? He doesn’t even know the gender of his child! His words.
@Paul Linehan: so that would be the vast majority of the population are all numpties? Thanks for your insight.
@Sun Rise: ff and fg are no better robbing future generations of a future in own country
@Sun Rise: he forgot to mention their policy of free entry to Ireland for every scam immigrant in the world
@Buster Lawless: stick with your jimmy saville ‘jokes’. They really do become you.
Just look, point and laugh at those lefty clowns
@Thomas Sheridan: and sopping all deportations. They’re completely deranged.
@Declan Young: No problem Deco, but a look in the mirror would’ve set the record straight for you earlier in life.
The anti everything, pro nothing mob. Pie in the sky economics.
@Matt D: Well, by that article they are pro quite a lot actually.
@Brian D’Arcy: yes essentially stuff that will bring down the country.
@Matt D: they exist purely for laughing at
A bunch of non binary wokies.
@K O: bunch of incels
They make the students union look like adults.
Still good for a laugh
No to Communism and far left insanity
@Michael Cooney: I believe when you say Communism you mean Leninism i.e. a dictatorship of the proletarian hence meaning that they unequivocally are not for a dictatorship. At least attack them on something that makes sense, not your opinion.
@Brian D’Arcy: But lads like Cooney just throw out overused words and cliches. You shouldn’t confuse them with people who know what they’re talking about.
@Jack Hayes: These people basically want state ownership of everything. They would destroy the country in a month. They are lunatics, thankfully on about 2% support.
@Michael Cooney: but apart of the Democracy and we need to respect that, however nuts they are.
@Brian D’Arcy: all the same clowns
@Brian D’Arcy: You cant win Brian. People have imagined their own reality and are pretty certain of it.
We need a Sinn Fein — People Before Profit coalition to get this country back on track. Rotating taoiseach arrangement between Mary Lou / Richard Boyd Barrett / Paul Murphy. Add in Clare Daly and Mick Wallace if short on numbers
I see SF will now require immigrants to register their presence in Ireland. While FG say there is no such thing as an ‘illegal migrant’
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: you being satirical or serious. Surely not serious? Surely surely not
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: And Sf proposals that EU citizens ” register ” that proposal is even unconditional and really desperate……they are quite literally trying to destroy our country. And don’t forget it took from 1970 to 1997 to have a SF TD take a seat in Dail Eireann under the SF banner, even during the hunger strikes they remained Absolutionist as they are now with there MPs …….
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: wouldn’t that be lovely
@F1rYnpWc: They are asking fellow EU citizens to register too, which is illegal under our constitution…..
@Paul O’Mahoney: and what about northerners who are non-eu?
@Alan: That’s under a different legislation ie the Good Friday Agreement and the terms of Brexit, of course there’s another piece of legislation on the ” common travel ” between the UK and us.
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: they could have done that at the last election, but the reality of responsibility set in. Their dictators on what to do rather than leading on how to do.
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf:
Why not call on Trump while your at it.
He would blend in well with that lot.
Only decent thing a shinner ever did was starve themselves lol
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: PBP come in with a strong manifesto that will resonate with many. They will take votes, but from who!
A wave of disinterest washes over the nation. Student politics guarantees they’ll continue to enjoy ‘margin of error’ support.
@honey badger: That’s almost poetic , in fact it might actually be.
@honey badger: they exist purely for laughing at, just look at the state of them lol
Why can’t the other parties also steal their proposal to establish a state construction company so we don’t solely rely on the private market, banning foreign funds, and their pro worker policies
@F1rYnpWc: How is a state construction company going to solve anything? It’ll just steal workers from private companies and have a much lower output. They should be focusing on policies to attract construction workers here
@F1rYnpWc: You know the reason why state construction companies do not exist in other countries? Because it’s a terrible idea.
@Alex: China ?
@Brian: If we had the CCP enforce targets for a state construction company, it might work
@Mick Duvanny: LOL.. maybe.. they get stuff built though ! Probably best sticking to the likes of BAM though and pay them 2.5 billion for a hospital.. it’s working out well for us tbf. We should go to BAM with the apple money and ask them ..what can I get for that.. a la D’Unbelievables sketch of the boy in the shop.. how much for wan of them and two of those..
@Brian: The country that now have demolitions over €2 trn every year of property and evicted the owners. And then pumped half of trillion $ equivalent into a company that had a valuation of 500bn and went to the HK stock market with the plan and then brought that market down by 16% in 15mins ….great model.
@F1rYnpWc: its not a good idea
@Paul O’Mahoney: Thanks for that Paul.. your insight, with the economics degree you got off Santa two years ago, is invaluable as always. Your conflating a number of things there..but rather than getting into it with you.. over a comment that was largely intended as a bit of craic.. I’d rather watch the match.
@Brian: The irony that these are all the same people bemoaning BAMs children’s hospital, its a good example of why we get nothing done. imo it’s a great idea and maybe the only way we get any infrastructure. Should have been done 30 years ago unfortunately, but then so should everything else.
Woke Before People??? YOU’RE FIRED!
@Buster Lawless: your pedo jokes have just got YOU fired lol
Like over achieving school boys that never achieved nothing, and a hard days work in their life a bunch of non binary actors.
@Phillip Smyth: Never achieved anything, not never achieved nothing
@Brian D’Arcy: sorry sir, don’t check me please I’ll say it how I like that’s the way it rolls of my tongue sir.
@Brian D’Arcy: You are a Coconut, remove a few constants and vowels and your there it’s a 4 letter word starts with C and ends in t
@Brian D’Arcy: clown
Good God …..48bn in extra spending per their budget proposals add this on top probably 60bn , and with our tax income at 100bn there proposals would add 300bn to the already 230bn national debt….or half a trillion national debt.
Average interest now is 1.5 % or about 3.5 bn pa, if they enter Government at any level even the tax increases won’t cover the gap in fact it would plunge us into a deeper hole that was created during the 2008 crash….our interest rates on international bond market would soar to Greek levels or Afghanistan…..
Pure idealogy, and dangerous ones to boot.
@Paul O’Mahoney: not a brain cell between the looney left lol
@Paul O’Mahoney:
Trust fund clowns
What a surprise, PBP’s manifesto is full of Marxist codswallop. They want to bankrupt our pension system further. They want to further expand Fine Gael’s rent control which caused the housing shortage in the first place. They want abortion up until birth including partial-birth abortions where the baby’s brain is sucked out via a tube. They want to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, which is nothing more than a farcical piece of legislation which rewards acts of terror committed by Hamas. They want to hike up taxes of those who produce the wealth in our society. They want to expand and throw more money at the HSE instead of privatising it and they want to see Ukraine lose the war against their buddies in the Kremlin. The only place this manifesto belongs is in the bin.
Was the loud, blaring white noise not coming from Paul Murphy?
@Brendan Whyte: A simple man with media coverage for a few hours.
Way-hay free money for all!
The pay for nothing brigade.
@Max: just a bunch of losers
Fantasy stuff…
The purge is on what do they actually do.
The country has yet to wake up. But when they do, it’s already too late
Another Political Establishment attacking Rural Ireland. I don’t see them reducing the amount of flights that are coming into or going out of Dublin Airport . Shannon and Cork are there too but they don’t matter….
@Tommy: Boo hoo..the reason why Dublin is what it is is that it’s our Capital City and I say that as a Cork man
@Tommy: In all fairness they want to stop the US military using Shannon so that will make that airport unviable
Antisemitism raises its ugly head yet again in Ireland and PBP leading the charge.
@Billy Joe: Yep
@Billy Joe: don’t forget their tea towel support for the Hamas subhumans
4 day week without loss of pay…..who’s paying for the unworked day?
@Hunt Ley: nobody! It’s about changing the working week and how you change your productivity!
Enough to make the rich and the borgeoisie panic so they must be onto something
@Brian D’Arcy: You want your job seeker benefits raised isn’t it?
@Brian D’Arcy: ” bourgeois ” that made me laugh. Do you mean those that pay taxes and those taxes used to keep up the ” pour” to a standard?
There are poor people in Ireland and perhaps the reason they are is help is being diverted to generational theft….
But let’s blame immigration…
@Brian D’Arcy: deluded lol
They have so many issues including Cows , what cows did we’ll never know,, it reminds of a Joke Billy Connolly had about inner city Glasgow going into the country for the day and a description of Heifers… good times
A clueless bunch of clowns. Basic economics far too difficult for them.
These clowns are waffling on again about leading a left government without FF or FG. Living in cloud cuckoo land.
Vote No1 The Monk!
@Alan Kennedy: hopefully he dilute the shinners vote, Mary looper is in trouble :)
@Paul M Doe: clare daly and the monk!
It’s not like their plans your nuclear fission were stolen. All their proposals are standard fare
These guys are !d!0ts. Never earned money in their life it just appears in the bank every month.
Smell of trust fund hippy off most of them.
@H Woo: Solid reasoning,
Who is their candidate in South Kerry????
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