Data Protection Act 2018 (Section 60(6)) and (Section 51(3)) Regulations 2026: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-24 ============================================================ Maria McCormack (SF), Labour Panel I thank the Minister of State for coming in. We absolutely welcome this motion on the regulations and the scoping exercise. I just want to talk about the facts that are there right now. On 18 November 2025, the Government agreed to the establishment of a statutory public inquiry into spina bifida and complex scoliosis services at CHI. On 26 November 2025, it also agreed to a scoping exercise in response to the request from Dignity4Patients on behalf of the victims and survivors of Michael Shine, to be undertaken by an independent person. Both facilitators for the individual scoping exercises commenced their work on Tuesday 3 March 2026. The exercises will run for up to 16 weeks. I totally welcome this. Both of these scoping exercises are welcome. It is clear that in order for the facilitators to conduct these exercises, it is required that the personal data be processed. Today's motion deals with the technicalities in order that all of this can happen. I welcome the progression of these inquiries. For many years, Sinn Féin requested that such inquiries be established. The Shine inquiry seems to be progressing in line with the wishes of the victims and survivors. I hope that continues. I have concerns that the patients, namely the children, and parents who were totally failed are not considered central in the context of the CHI inquiry. I really hope this can happen because it is important that we listen to the voices of those with lived experience. The ongoing failures relating to children with scoliosis and spina bifida are appalling and shameful. There are not enough words to describe the failures on the part of successive Governments. We have to call it out as it is. It is eight years since Simon Harris promised that no child would wait longer than four months for spinal surgery. That promise has been broken again and again. Today, children are still in desperate, heart-breaking situations. I have met many of these families. We have seen report after report, for example, the HIQA report, the Boston report, the Dickson report, the Arthur Cox report, the Nayagam review and many others. I really hope that this will lead to meaningful action. So many children had unnecessary surgeries. Some children had unauthorised springs used in their surgeries. One of those children, a young boy, is known personally to me. He has a lot of health complications from those springs being put in. Some children waited so long for the surgeries they urgently needed that they lost their lives, which the Minister of State spoke about in her opening statement. We will not go into any details, but poor Chloe Maher. I extend my deepest sympathies to her family. In the case of young Harvey Morrison Sherratt, a child died before ever getting his surgery. His heartbroken parents then had to deal with the revelation that Harvey had been taken off the waiting list without their knowledge. More parents, in sheer desperation, have taken to highlighting their children's stories in the media to try to get action from the Minister and the HSE to get their children the treatment they need and highlight the mistakes and failures that were repeatedly made. It is shocking; it is utterly disgraceful. No child or family should have to go through any of these horror stories. That is all we could call it - a horror story that we have been listening to for too long now. More needs to be done for the children who are still waiting on surgery. That is really clear because the failures are still happening. We need to be sure that, for children with complex cases, the failures and the scandals stop happening time and over again in children's healthcare. The inquiry is welcome, but it has to look at the failures from the top to the bottom. We need to know what happened in each and every child's case and we need to be absolutely sure that there is no hiding place for anybody throughout this process. There is a lot of work to be done. I really sincerely hope that this inquiry is done right. I want to pay particular tribute to the incredible patients, parents and advocates who have turned their horrific pain into power to seek justice. This is one of the greatest failures of our generation. I really hope that every resource will be put into this and that no stone will be left unturned so that this inquiry stops further failures in Children's Health Ireland for young children. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:46+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-24