This question relates to the health service recruitment embargo, which, by the way, is a Government-imposed recruitment embargo given that in budget 2024, the health service simply did not get the funding it needed. Will the Minister end that embargo and publish the HSE pay and numbers strategy?

We have a growing population and demand in healthcare has increased. When we talked a number of times last year about the deficit that existed in healthcare, the Minister and officials in the Department of Health and the HSE cited two reasons for that, namely, health inflation and increases in demand for services, and the Minister rightly said we were not going to turn away patients. Healthcare demand is what it is, and we have to have the staff and the capacity to deal with that demand. That is the backdrop here. …

It is not a coarse measure; it is the wrong measure. It simply is wrong and I think Deputy Donnelly knows that as Minister for Health. We cannot seek to improve services in the healthcare system if a recruitment embargo is in place. The Minister cited the exemptions, which I accept are in place for final-year graduate nurses and hospital consultants, but all the other posts are not exempt. The HSE sought €20 million for the national cancer strategy for 2024; it got zero. There are a range of posts that need to be f…

We are training these people.

This question relates to the mid-west region and University Hospital Limerick. I will start by recognising the loss of Aoife Johnston. I pass on my heartfelt condolences again to her family and her parents. Aoife was one of many patients who we know were failed in that hospital. As the Minister knows, her family are grieving. We have a real challenge and a real problem in UHL. What additional beds and capacity will be put in place in the mid-west and UHL to once and for all fix the problem for the people who live i…

The tragedy of all of this is that most of those beds have come far too late. There is no reason those beds should not have been funded years ago. Everybody knows that when the decision was made to close Ennis and Nenagh emergency departments, additional capacity was needed in Limerick. It was promised that it would be a centre of excellence. It has not been able to perform as that centre of excellence and the main trauma and emergency department service for Limerick because it does not have the capacity. There is …

I am all for reform in that hospital and every other hospital, but I was one of those members, including Deputy Crowe, who attended the briefing for the Oireachtas health committee. We met with the head of the HSE and clinicians, hospital management and healthcare trade unions. All of them, to a man and a woman, told us that the big problem in Limerick is capacity. We need reforms but every single day there are patients who are deemed sick enough to be admitted to a bed but the beds are not there. Approximately 200…

This question relates to spinal surgeries for children with scoliosis and spina bifida. The Minister will be aware that over the past number of months there has been a number of high-profile reports of children and their families having to take the media. Some of those children have been waiting since as far back as 2020 for their spinal surgeries to be done. The families are pleading for help and looking for Children's Health Ireland, CHI, to deliver the care their child needs. What more can be done to ensure that…

Despite all of the talk that comes from Government and the Minister regarding record investment, record staff, record capacity and all of that, we have children who are waiting. Last week, I raised with the Taoiseach the case of Liam Dennehy, who has been left waiting more than five months for his surgery. Unfortunately, his spinal curvature is going in the wrong direction. I also raised, on Tuesday, the case of Paddy Murphy, a 14-year-old who has been waiting for his surgery since 2020. There are many cases like t…

The problem is that for many parents and many children that is not happening. A number of weeks ago I raised the case of Aiveen, a young child with early-onset scoliosis. Her family crowdfunded for her to go to America to get specialist treatment. She got that and is now doing very well. She certainly did not get the support from the HSE. Her family had to depend on the public coming in behind that campaign and her getting the support. I have mentioned two cases but there are hundreds of children waiting for scolio…

The Government did not have an embargo in place last year.

The Taoiseach should read our budget, so he can see what we proposed.

The Taoiseach is distracting.

It was 7,000 last year.

I call for a debate on children's healthcare and in doing so I want to raise a very important point with the Taoiseach. On 16 April, during the Taoiseach's first Leaders' Questions, Uachtarán Shinn Féin, an Teachta McDonald, raised the very serious issue of children with scoliosis and spina bifida with him. His response on the day was not to give full answers but to mislead the Dáil and spread misinformation about Sinn Féin's alternative health budget.

The Taoiseach will have seen that the Journal.ie did a fact check-----

I am simply making the point that, independent of me, Sinn Féin and Fine Gael, the Journal.ie did a fact check and found the Taoiseach's claim to be false. I say again that it found his claim to be false. I am asking the Taoiseach, in good grace, to withdraw the false claim he made. More importantly, I am asking for a debate on this issue. Last week, I raised the issue of Liam Dennehy from County Kerry with the Taoiseach. Today, I raise another case in the media, that of Paddy Murphy, a 14-year-old, who is pleading…

Correct the record. Show some good grace.

More misrepresentation.

There is another fact-check coming your way.