LAST UPDATE | 12 Nov

THE TÁNAISTE AND the Minister for Health have agreed to bring a memo to Cabinet recommending a statutory public model of inquiry into the care of children with scoliosis and spina bifida.

It comes after Simon Harris and Jennifer Carroll MacNeill held a meeting with the parents of 9-year-old Harvey Sherratt at Government Buildings this afternoon. 

Gillian Sherratt and Stephen Morrison have campaigned to get answers on the timeline of their son’s care, and a decision to remove him from a spinal surgery waitlist. 

Harvey eventually had the surgery in December 2024. However, despite his overall health improving after surgery, he suddenly deteriorated eight months later and he died on 29 July.

In a joint statement with Scoliosis Advocacy Network and the Spina bifida and hydrocephalus paediatric advocacy group (SBHPAG) this evening, Harvey’s parents said the Tánaiste and Minister for Health had agreed to the inquiry in principle. 

“A facilitator/mediator will be put in place to ensure that the Terms of Reference are acceptable to the Scoliosis Advocacy Network and the Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Paediatric Advocacy Group. This will ensure that the child’s and parents’ voice remain central throughout the process,” they said. 

“We are hopeful that the result of this inquiry will mean that there will be true and substantial change going forward, so that no children will ever be failed in the same manner that Harvey was.”

Harris and Carroll MacNeill described the meeting with Harvey’s parents and the advocacy groups as “collaborative and constructive”. 

“It is the intention to bring a memo to Government recommending a statutory public model of inquiry,” they said in a statement. 

They said a considerable body of work will be required and a facilitator will be appointed to scope the content of potential terms of reference in collaboration with stakeholders.

Protected disclosure

“The Tánaiste and the Minister for Health are grateful to the family for their time and engagement.”

Earlier today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was not aware of a protected disclosure having been made to the HSE about Harvey’s care.

The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that a whistleblower made a protected disclosure to the HSE that Harvey, who had spina bifida and scoliosis, was “mistakenly taken off the waiting list because he was deemed to be in palliative care”. 

CHI made a public statement yesterday stating that it only received notice of the disclosure from the HSE on the day prior. 

The HSE said it got the document in September, and it further engaged with the whistleblower. 

It said that Harvey was deemed suitable for surgery once his bone density improved by an independent consultant surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. 

Speaking in the Dáil dureing Leaders Questions today, Mary Lou McDonald TD said that his parents had found out by accident that he was removed from the list without their knowledge or consent, and that they had fought to get them back on it. 

She said that the protected disclosure was sent to the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill in August, and to the HSE in September. 

McDonald said that Harvey’s parents had repeatedly called for transparency and received only “lies, spin and deception” in return. 

Martin refuted the suggestion that Carroll MacNeill had sight of the disclosure. 

“Neither myself nor the Tánaiste nor the Minister for Health had any awareness of this, it’s not right or proper that any other construction should be put on it,” he said. 

The Taoiseach speaking during Leader's Questions in the Dáil today.

He said that he fully understood the distress Harvey’s family most be feeling in response to the report of the whistleblower’s disclosure. 

In response to McDonald’s point that Harvey was “deliberately removed” from the surgery waitlist, Martin said that he could not understand what would motivate anyone to do that, and that answers will be pursued through an inquiry. 

He added that the Minister for Health has written to Harvey’s parents about the different types of inquiry available, and that the process of setting one up is underway. 

Gillian Sherratt this week said she was “shocked” by the whistleblower’s report. 

Gillian discovered her son was no longer on the waiting list in August 2024 when she contacted CHI to query why she had not heard anything about Harvey’s scoliosis surgery plan.

Harvey had been waiting at least three and half years for the surgery, and at that stage the curve on his spine had grown to a life-threatening 130 degrees.

“It’s been fifteen months since I found out that Harvey was removed from the list, and it is just getting worse,” she said.

“We still have no clarity or any accountability as to what led to that.”

Gillian said that she will continue to lobby the government for a full statutory inquiry into CHI’s management of services for children with scoliosis and spina bifida.

With reporting by Jane Moore