SENATORS EXPRESSED STRONG support in the Seanad this evening for a bill that is seeking to require the HSE to establish a specialised treatment service for spinal scoliosis.

Problems and delays in accessing treatment for scoliosis in Ireland, especially for children, has been raised repeatedly as an issue in recent years.

Last year, an audit revealed that targets for reducing the waiting lists for children for spinal surgery were not being met and that the number of “non-complex” surgeries on children with scoliosis and spina bifida between 2022 and 2023 was almost 200 below target despite improved funding.

The national treatment service envisaged in the bill would provide “timely and effective” inpatient and outpatient treatment of scoliosis for children and adults, including detection, assessment and remedial treatment.

Under the proposed bill, the HSE would be required to allocate adequate resources to running the service, such as paying for the necessary specialist surgeon, other medical staff and treatment facilities.

The bill debated in the Seanad this evening was sponsored by Senator Michael McDowell and a number of other Independents, including Senator Tom Clonan, who told the chamber about his son Eoghan’s experience of requiring spinal surgery. 

“Like other children on the list, his surgery was delayed,” Clonan said.

“My son should have had the scoliosis surgery when he was about 12 years old but he didn’t. It was delayed for four years, and those were during the teenage years when your organs are developing,” he said.

“His lung function was down to about 30% and also his heart was compressed. We went to the pediatric cardiologist in Temple Street for a scan prior to surgery and she couldn’t find his heart initially because it was in a part of the chest cavity where it should not normally be,” Clonan recounted.

He said the knock-on effects for his son caused by the surgery being delayed have had “life-limiting implications”.

Clonan said that there are “children on acute waiting lists who have become inoperable” because they have been left waiting so long for surgery.

Listening to @TomClonan speak of his sons experience waiting for his spinal fusion. The additional and unnecessary risks he was facing due to delays in accessing care.

Heartbreaking, but common for children who live with #scoliosis. #Scoliosistreatmentbill @CarrollJennifer pic.twitter.com/KfBPEkib8q

— Claire Cahill (@ClarCahill) March 19, 2025

As of February 2025, there were 233 patients on Children’s Health Ireland’s spinal surgery waiting lists.

Senator Michael McDowell, in his remarks during the debate, said that “this bill should never have been necessary”.

“I know that the electoral cycle made it difficult for the government to decide on the principle of the legislation in the run-up to the last election, because in May or June of last year we didn’t know whether we were in an immediate electoral cycle or was it going to be at this time of this year or some intermediate date,” he said.

“But this is not about electioneering. This is a commitment made by the supporters of this legislation and the members of this house who unanimously supported it, and nobody opposed it on the last occasion.

“This is the occasion on which we can actually put in place measures, the cumulative effect of which will be to bring justice and healing and to prevent suffering to a group of people who have suffered too long and to ensure that those in future who need those services and who develop those conditions are adequately dealt with by the Health Service Executive in Ireland,” he said.