Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising this very serious issue. I have offered my condolences to Harvey Morrison Sherratt's family, to Gillian and Stephen, on previous occasions, as has Deputy McDonald. I respect the Deputy's commitment to the issue. As I have said in this House before, no words of condolence or consolation to Harvey's parents are enough. It is an enormous trauma for any parent to go through but, in these circumstances, it is even more traumatic in terms of the experiences the family and Harvey have had with hospitals and the clinical world. It is unacceptable. The Government is anxious to help the family to find the answers to the questions they have about Harvey's care. The Minister for Health asked for a multidisciplinary report on the chronology from CHI regarding its involvement in Harvey's care and the key milestones, as recorded on CHI hospital records. The HSE CEO received this draft report on 19 August and shared it with Harvey's parents. The HSE CEO and the Minister have made it clear they view this report as a draft until such time as the family have the opportunity to comment on and feed into the chronology and ensure any additional information they have is reflected in the final report.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Health met Harvey's parents on 29 September. At that meeting, there was agreement that there would be an inquiry and that the detail of it would be determined in partnership. Following the meeting, as agreed, the Minister for Health wrote to the parents on 13 October setting out the range of types of inquiries available. The Minister subsequently attended the audiovisual room briefing, which many Members of this House also attended, to listen to the requests being made. There will be a meeting today between the Minister and the Tánaiste following up on this. The objective is to make progress on the nature and format of an inquiry which will be commissioned.
With regard to The Sunday Times report on a protected disclosure being made to the Department of Health, I want to make absolutely clear - I do not think it should be conflated wrongly - that neither I, the Tánaiste nor the Minister for Health had any awareness of this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12