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Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Health
- Irish Examiner
Our children bear the scars of Simon Harris's broken promises on scoliosis surgery
It was 1pm when my six-year-old son Darragh looked at me and said: 'I have a really long day ahead of me, Mammy.' Most children that age say things like this when they are waiting for something exciting. For Darragh, it meant something else entirely. It was his way of telling me that the exhaustion and discomfort in his small body felt endless. This was during his first wait for scoliosis surgery. During that time, I watched my child's health unravel. Darragh became cachectic, a level of wasting usually seen in end-stage cancer. He was so underweight he no longer appeared on the children's growth charts. His curved spine was crushing his stomach, leaving him unable to eat enough to keep up with the calories he was burning just to survive. His body was working overtime simply to keep him alive. Scoliosis is not just a curve in the spine. It can affect every system in the body — lungs, heart, digestion, mobility. I learned this not from a textbook but from the daily reality of caring for my son. Washing his little body in the shower, I thought to myself: if I failed to care for him in the way the HSE was failing him, I would be in jail. Claire Cahill: We have seen every squandered opportunity, every cycle of promises and excuses, every resource wasted while children's conditions worsened. Picture: Conor Ó Mearáin/Collins We are not new to this fight. For 10 years, we have campaigned for better — for my child and for others. We have seen every squandered opportunity, every cycle of promises and excuses, every resource wasted while children's conditions worsened. In 2015, Darragh was placed on his first waiting list for surgery. In 2017, Darragh's story reached national television through RTÉ's Living on the List. Families like ours shared the suffering, the deterioration, the impossible waits. The country reacted with outrage. That same year, scoliosis delays were officially recognised by the Ombudsman for Children as a breach of children's rights. Then minister for health, Simon Harris stood in front of cameras and promised that no child would wait more than four months for surgery. We believed him. We believed change was coming. But in 2018, an outsourcing plan that could have helped clear the backlog failed. Sixty operations were tendered for, only 28 completed. Once again, precious resources were squandered through mismanagement, with consequences for children who were left to deteriorate. Now, in the most recent outsourcing effort, we are watching the same mistakes play out all over again — another cycle of lost opportunity and unnecessary harm. Only four surgeries have been completed this year, despite waiting lists continuing to grow. In 2023, the scandal took a darker turn. We learned of children being implanted with non-medical-grade devices and infection rates that were off the scale. The Ivy Report from the Ombudsman for Children told of a teenager who waited five years for spinal fusion, during which her curve worsened from 30 to over 135 degrees. Born with cerebral palsy, she suffered severe physical and mental decline while repeated concerns to her GP, consultant, and CHI went unanswered. The report showed how maladministration led to poor outcomes, a stark example of systemic failure that has cost children their health, and in some cases their lives. In 2024, the Spinal Management Unit was established, supposedly to improve communication with parents. Yet it consists of the same people, rotating chairs on the Titanic. My experience tells a different story from the promises. My son's July out-patient appointment was cancelled and we were never informed. Parents are expected to be mind-readers in a system that can barely manage the basics. A taskforce also exists, but not a single parent of a child currently in CHI has taken a seat, such is the depth of the mistrust. Why are we funding taskforces and management units that do not work? Children still waiting Today, in 2025, children are still waiting. My own son is once again back on a 'semi-urgent' waiting list, which is supposed to mean surgery within 13 weeks. He has been on that list since November 14, 2024. As I write this, it is now 39 weeks later — three times the promised timeframe. In April, we were told there was no date and no timeframe for surgery. For children like Darragh, semi-urgent means living with a spine that continues to curve because scoliosis does not wait for the system to catch up. For many children with congenital or early-onset scoliosis, surgery is not a one-off operation. They spend their entire childhoods on waiting lists, moving from one delay to the next. Each postponement causes further deterioration. Every lost month increases the risk of more invasive procedures, more pain, and poorer outcomes. Parents have been shouting out for years, warning of the grave danger to our children and the mismanagement of care and resources in CHI. We have presented evidence, told our children's stories, and pleaded for timely intervention. Our calls fell on deaf ears. What must happen now is beyond debate. CHI cannot be trusted to lead scoliosis services any longer. An independent inquiry is needed, along with external oversight of how every euro is spent. Time and again, they have shown themselves incapable of delivering safe, timely care. While they mismanaged resources, our children kept waiting for wheelchairs, for appointments, for surgery, and some waited so long that the chance for help was lost forever. Simon Harris will always be associated with that four-month promise because he has never delivered on it. The consequences of that broken promise are written in the physical and emotional scars our children carry. This is not about political point-scoring. A minister can publicly promise something that is the standard in other countries, fail to meet it year after year, and still go on to lead the Government. In the meantime, hundreds of children like Darragh remain in limbo, paying the price in lost mobility, worsening curves, and years stolen from childhoods. We do not need new targets that will be quietly forgotten. We need action on the promises already made. We need leadership that understands that 'urgent' means today, not next year. Under Simon Harris's watch, children have shouldered the life-altering consequences of delayed care, while he emerges politically unscathed. Out of respect for every child who has suffered or lost their childhood to these delays, he must now face his own consequences and step down. Every delay robs a piece of childhood that no surgery can restore.
Irish Times
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Children's Ombudsman stopped visiting asylum seekers due to budget cuts
Budget constraints forced the Ombudsman for Children to suspend regular visits to hear concerns from asylum seekers living in direct provision centres , new documents show. Correspondence shows the ombudsman , Dr Niall Muldoon, said his office 'cannot continue to fulfil our statutory obligations within existing resourcing'. Last year he requested additional funding from the Department of Children , warning his office had to 'curtail some of our work due to insufficient resources'. The independent Ombudsman for Children's Office is tasked with handling complaints made by or for children about the actions of public organisations and promoting the rights and welfare of children. READ MORE Last February, Dr Muldoon told the department his office had 'no choice' since July 2023 but to 'suspend our regular complaints outreach visits to direct provision centres due to lack of resources' and could now 'only visit centres where serious concerns are reported to us'. Outreach meetings involved staff visits to direct provision centres where detailed discussions take place with asylum seeker residents or families who have issues. In the correspondence released under Freedom of Information laws, he said his office has been unable to begin the visits to centres accommodating Ukrainians 'due to the lack of resources'. 'These are measures we did not wish to take, especially in light of our concerns about these children and families, but we felt we had no option but to introduce a priority approach to visits due to lack of resources to fulfil this role,' he said. Dr Muldoon said efforts to deliver workshops to children who find his office hard to reach, including many in direct provision and mental health units, were also affected. 'We were unable to complete our full programme of visits due to insufficient staffing and this means that many children who are already at serious disadvantage are once again being let down.' [ Government 'let down' child victims of domestic and sexual violence, ombudsman says Opens in new window ] Dr Muldoon sought funding of just under €650,000 for five new posts. In response, the Department of Children's secretary general, Kevin McCarthy, said the budget for the ombudsman's office showed a 10.7 per cent increase over 2023, 'well ahead of overall headline expenditure increases'. 'As for all publicly funded bodies, it will be necessary for the office to prioritise demands for new or expanded service delivery in line with available resources in 2024.' Dr Muldoon later wrote directly to then minister for children Roderic O'Gorman outlining: 'We cannot continue to fulfil our statutory obligations within existing resourcing.' He criticised a 'consistent pattern with our budget allocation in recent years which is no longer sustainable'. He requested a budget allocation of €5.7 million for 2025, arguing the cost of providing existing services would be €5.1 million. Budget 2025 allocated a little more than €5 million. A spokeswoman for the ombudsman's office said it has 'worked to fully maximise our resources across all of our functions'. [ Opinion: The direct provision system has reached its limits Opens in new window ] She said outreach visits to Oberstown Children Detention Campus and other locations such as direct provision centres are part of the office's work responding to complaints. 'We are committed to continuing to grow our outreach to ensure we are accessible to children who may find us hard to reach.' It is understood visits taking place primarily respond to complaints received by the ombudsman as opposed to a full programme of site visits. 'The [office] continues to engage with the Department of Children . . . to ensure that our budget for 2026 can meet the demands of the office,' she said. A spokeswoman for the department said it values the office's work. She said Minister for Children Norma Foley met Dr Muldoon in recent weeks. She and her department are 'committed to working with the [ombudsman's office] to ensure it continues making a positive contribution'. [ Opinion: Government has quietly shelved its plan to end direct provision Opens in new window ]
Irish Examiner
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Children denied basic rights of care and education being let down by legal system, report finds
Children most at risk of being failed in terms of their care, education, housing, disability and mental services are being denied their rights and do not have the means to challenge it, a new report has said. Published by charity Community Law and Mediation, it found a string of issues are compounding this lack of access for children, such as gaps in professional knowledge among lawyers in how to support those whose rights are violated, and inadequate legal support for organisations working directly with children. 'Children encounter the legal system in different ways than adults do, and our approach must reflect that,' its chief executive Aoife Kelly-Desmond said. It commissioned the report, compiled by children's law expert Róisín Webb, to determine the need for a specialised legal service for children and the role it could play. The report said while many children's organisations campaign for reform on a range of issues, there is currently no organisation in Ireland which focuses exclusively on the reform of the law and legal systems from a children's rights perspective. One such group previously existed, but was wound down a decade ago, and the report said learnings could be gained from that experience. In the areas where children are currently being let down, it highlighted evidence showing a 'recurring theme' of a 'disconnect between administrative decisionmakers and those affected by those decisions'. 'The Ombudsman for Children [has expressed] concerns about provision for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, the use of commercial hotels for children in direct provision, the need for timely vulnerability assessments for children seeking international protection, as well as the lack of robust systems to identify and support teenagers at risk of criminal and sexual exploitation,' the report said. 'Recent reports have also highlighted the fact that the focus on children and young people came too late during the covid pandemic, impacting their mental wellbeing, with the impact exacerbated for those already in vulnerable and disadvantaged situations.' It also highlighted failings identified for children in care, children in the justice system, children with disabilities, children in poverty, LGBTQ+ children, homeless children, Traveller and Roma children and children seeking refuge in Ireland. The report recommends the creation of a specialist children's legal service in Ireland, which should have a particular focus on outreach. It said this had the potential to enhance access to justice for children and young people, particularly for those impacted by disadvantage and inequality or lacking family supports. Another recommendation is around a specialist children's legal service being situated within an existing independent law centre, such as Community Law and Mediation, to avoid the previous difficulties, which led to the previous service winding down. Ms Kelly-Desmond said: 'Informed by the findings of the report, [we aim] to scale up its existing children's law services to become a centre for excellence in relation to child friendly justice and legal advocacy for children, with a particular focus on children impacted by disadvantage and inequality.' Read More Back-to-school payments to be extended to children in foster care
