At 10am next Tuesday morning, a 14-year-old girl will begin a 50-hour sleepout protest outside the Dáil.
Disability rights campaigner Cara Darmody has been advocating for her two younger brothers who are autistic.
To coincide with her demonstration, the opposition will come together to pile pressure on the Government over the ongoing delays for children in accessing assessments of need.
These initial evaluations are the gateway to accessing further services and without them, children and their parents are left bereft.
According to Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Children, Disability and Equality Claire Kerrane, the waiting list now stands at 15,296.
And just 7% of assessments are completed within the six-month timeline set down by law.
In an unusual move, opposition parties are joining forces to table a Private Members' Motion demanding that the Government take urgent action to address what they say is a crisis.
This includes a workforce plan to increase staffing along with more funding for services.
At the same time, the fallout is just beginning from the revelations of unnecessary hip operations for children.
For several days the Government has been under attack for its perceived lack of urgency in moving to fill the vacuum of information for distressed families who may be affected.
These parents have been receiving letters from Children's Health Ireland notifying them that their children should be receiving follow-up care after having operations.
But these notifications - and over 2,200 have been sent - do not contain the vital confirmation on whether their children may have had unwarranted surgical interventions.
And while a review is close to being finalised, it seems this will also not give definitive answers.
Children as young as one years of age have had their hips opened up, cutting into their bones.
The clinical review has been undertaken as an anonymised sample of operations at Temple Street, Crumlin Hospital and Cappagh Hospital between 2021 and 2023.
A draft version of the review was leaked and published online and some findings have been read into the Dáil record.
Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty told the House that 60% of surgeries in one hospital, and 80% in another, were unnecessary.
He said: "Children as young as one years of age have had their hips opened up, cutting into their bones.
"They have had to learn how to walk again. They have been left with scars for their life, and now we find out that these surgeries may have been unnecessary."
This goes to the heart of the distressing evolving controversy.
And the Government has been put in a difficult position of attempting to answer questions on the allegations while insisting that it must wait until the full facts are available.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed this week that the full report should be completed next week and given to the Minister for Health.
It is expected to be published quickly.
This will heap pressure on the Government to act as it has ultimate responsibility for appointing the board of Children's Health Ireland.
That organisation is already firefighting with its chairperson resigning in the wake of the report into the use of unauthorised springs in children's spinal surgeries.
Those were devastating revelations, but were confined to three children.
The unfolding issue of unnecessary hip operations is clearly much larger and may run to several hundred.
Accountability and further inquiries
So, there are two clear areas where Irish children are being failed by the State - the lengthy waiting lists for assessments of need and the revelations around children's operations.
All of this focuses the spotlight firmly on children's health and services with the line ministers firmly in the firing line.
Attention will turn to accountability and further inquiries - both areas of danger for the coalition.
In the wake of the springs controversy, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill resisted calls for the removal of the board of CHI.
This line may be increasingly difficult to hold.
And furthermore, it is already clear that the sample audit will not be sufficient and a broader comprehensive investigation will be needed.
Impact on current surgeries
In the meantime, questions are being asked about the impact of the ongoing review on services at the affected hospitals.
Labour Spokesperson on Health Marie Sherlock has called on the Health Minister and Children's Health Ireland to clarify whether the ongoing review into unnecessary hip operations in children is having an impact on the provision of surgery.
She has written to the minister and the chief executive of CHI asking for answers to specific questions, including whether any surgeon or staff member has been suspended or had their work curtailed on foot of the initiation of the review.
This all means that health is moving centre stage as was seen in the Dáil this week.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill appears to have had some early success on getting the HRT deal over the line with pharmacists and in getting some agreement on weekend rostering in hospitals.
But this evolving controversy will test her political skills.
Nothing could be more emotive than young children subjected to unnecessary gruelling surgery while others struggle on waiting lists.
