Health Services
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

I thank the Minister of State. I will certainly share the details with the Minister. I presume the Minister of State is talking about the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. The little girl's mother did reach out to the Minister for Health on this issue and did not receive a response. She reached out to primary care and she reached out to the hospital. She contacted everybody and was, as I said, sent around from one person to the other, and nobody knew or would take responsibility for what had happened. She does not know if this was just a slip-up by one person who missed something on their desk and did not sign off on it or whether there is a backlog in how the procedure operates, so she does not know if she is the only one. However, the fact that she had to wait three months last year as well indicates that the system is not working properly in the interest of the child or of any children. She therefore wants this highlighted. Obviously, she wants the brace for her own child as quickly as possible, but she made the point to me as well that there is no screening at birth for cerebral palsy. Her child has turned four. While she and her husband realised there were issues or there was something wrong, she did not get a diagnosis until her daughter was two. If the child had been screened at birth, this could have been picked up faster and supports put in place faster because, as she said, as soon as she was referred to someone to be diagnosed, they could immediately tell that there were issues and it was most likely cerebral palsy. It is a matter of even just having screening or a scan at birth for this condition as well.
I will send on the details but I hope I will receive a prompt reply from the Minister's office on this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-15