Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said that the country is "nowhere near" where it needs to be in providing timely and comprehensive medical interventions for children with scoliosis.
However, she told the Seanad that significant investment has been made available to lower waiting lists, adding, "there is a trajectory that's moving towards reducing this in a planned way".
Minister Carroll MacNeill said the Government would not oppose legislation drafted by the Independent Senator Michael McDowell which seeks to create a national treatment service "for the timely and effective inpatient and outpatient treatment of scoliosis."
Senator McDowell said his legislation was "not a party political blame game" or an attempt at "point scoring" but a strategy to impose obligations on the HSE which would result in a "timely end of trail of broken targets, heartbreak and suffering".
He said the legislation had received the overwhelming backing of scoliosis support groups and medical practitioners involved in scoliosis care.
Senator McDowell said there was a need to ring-fence resources, similar to provisions for patients living with cystic fibrosis.
He suspected that HSE did not like ring-fencing resources, adding he normally would be sympathetic to that view as there cannot be "a hierarchy of suffering".
However, Senator McDowell said that the "obverse of that coin is equality of access" and he has a "stack of testimony" from parents waiting for years for surgery for children living in pain.
Minister Carroll MacNeill quoted statistics from Children's Health Ireland which revealed 64 of the patients on the active waiting list have been waiting over four months.
She accepted this was an increase compared to the start of the year, but noted it was still over 25% less than at the start of 2024.
Independent Senator Victor Boyhan said a national treatment service for scoliosis care was vital, and he expressed concern that the spinal task force could be wound down - although Minister Carroll MacNeill clarified that this was not her intention.
Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell said the waiting lists were too long, noting that this is where "anger grows and distrust mounts".
He said 233 children with scoliosis are a waiting list - 15 of them for two years.
Independent Senator Tom Clonan said children with scoliosis need to be treated "within the therapeutic window" but the fact is that, in Ireland, "we don't" - something he described as a "medical scandal".
He explained how his son had to wait four years for surgery as he watched him twist in his wheelchair, stating that Ireland is a republic which is "failing the children" and their youth is being "squandered away".
Labour Senator Nessa Cosgrove said we are standing by watching scoliosis "squeeze the life out of our children" as they wait for treatment.
She said such "unnecessary suffering should not be tolerated".
The bill passed "committee stage" in the Seanad, will shortly move on to "report and final stage" and is likely to be passed by the Oireachtas as it is not being opposed.
