Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West

That is no problem.
Governments have fallen over less than what has happened in relation to Harvey Morrison Sherratt. We found out over the weekend through a protected disclosure that a worker heard or became aware that Harvey had been taken off the waiting list because he was mistakenly, or for whatever reason, considered "palliative" - in itself a horrible phrase. First, his parents were not told and, second, no care plan or treatment plan was drawn up if he was "palliative". This just defies belief. Aside from the fact that he may have ended up dying because of this error, perhaps if he had received the surgery, he would not be dead. The fact is that we have surgeons who would not tell parents about this and who would not organise a care plan for a "palliative" child. Every week, we come in here and ask the Taoiseach to have a statutory public inquiry. The Government's stance has been to have a scoping inquiry here and a scoping inquiry there. We need a full statutory inquiry into all of the issues surrounding Harvey, CHI and spinal surgery. The Taoiseach should have asked questions since this broke on Sunday, given how important this issue is in Ireland for so many people.

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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