Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

Over the summer, I met with Kirsty and Barry, who told me a heartbreaking and deeply troubling story about how their son Brody had been treated at Children's Health Ireland, CHI. He was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, DIPG, in May 2024. This is a very aggressive brain tumour that is inoperable. Children are treated as palliative once they are diagnosed. He then had a very invasive and dangerous procedure of a biopsy. As a result of the biopsy, he had a massive brain haemorrhage. His brain swelled to such a degree that the back of his skull had to be effectively cut off. He walked into the operating theatre in full command of the use of all his limbs and so on. After the operation and the biopsy, he could only move one of his eyes and he never learned to walk again. The biopsy was unnecessary. There was no clinical benefit to having the biopsy. The issue is that this is happening widely. We appear to be doing much more biopsies-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24