HEALTH MINISTER JENNIFER Carroll MacNeill said she wants all groups affected by issues at the Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) to engage with the independent facilitator as issues are scoped for a statutory inquiry.
The planned inquiry is to examine the care of children with scoliosis and spina bifida by CHI. It has been extended to include children with hip dysplasia.
With the government having committed to an inquiry in November 2025, Remy Farrell SC was appointed in March as the independent facilitator to scope out the issues that would be examined in the inquiry.
The scoping exercise was due to last 16 weeks and conclude next month.
However, there has been unhappiness amongst some of the families involved that the process will not be transparent nor cater to the families’ needs. There is also concern around a number of documents concerning CHI that have not been made available to families.
Two organisations, Spina Bifida & Hydrocephalus Paediatric Advocacy Group and the Scoliosis Advocacy Network, pulled out of the scoping exercise as a result. The groups say they represent over 900 families combined that have been impacted by issues at CHI.
The chair of the Oireachtas Health Committee, Social Democrats TD Padraig Rice, said this is a “mess of the Minister of Health’s own making.”
“Families deserve the truth about the serious failures at CHI, which include unnecessary surgeries, unapproved orthopaedic interventions, the use of non-medical devices in children without informed consent, and the mismanagement of waiting lists,” Rice said.
Speaking to reporters at the opening of a new surgical hub in Swords today, MacNeill said that there are eight different advocacy groups involved in the coping exercise, of which the facilitator has been engaging with “nearly all of those”.
The minister said there’s one group that hasn’t engaged, despite Farrell seeking to make contact for the purpose of the scoping exercise.
She continued: “He [Farrell] remains available to hear from all of the groups that he hasn’t yet heard from, as I said, he has engaged with many.”
Farrell had returned to her and asked to extend the terms of reference to include a group representing parents of children with hip dysplasia impacted by issues at CHI, which has now been included, she said.
“We’ve been able to broaden it out for different groups over time, but we would encourage everybody who wants to contribute, who can contribute, who would like to influence this process, to engage with the facilitator, whose job it is to scope out what steps we might take next.”
Asked if the process will continue if the two larger groups don’t engage with the scoping exercise, MacNeill said, “No one parent, no one child, no one group takes precedence over any other”, and added that she would welcome all to participate.