Sinn Féin has called on the Government to order a full review of hip surgeries at Children's Health Ireland following the revelations of unnecessary surgeries being carried out on children.
The review by a UK expert has looked at a randomised, anonymised sample of dysplasia of the hip operations between 2021 and 2023, in young children at the CHI sites at Crumlin and Temple Street and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh.
The review will establish if the threshold for surgery varied between the hospitals and whether all the surgeries were necessary.
Sinn Féin's health spokesperson David Cullinane told the Dáil that the existing review into what happened only covers 2021 to 2023, but he said the problem goes back much further.
"I got an email today from a family where the child had the osteotomy in 2010 and yet got a letter. So, how many letters were sent out? We don't know. Families don't know. Parents don't know.
"How long does this go back? Is the minister now so worried about this that we can't simply rely on an audit that looks at a random sample over three years when we know this could potentially be a much bigger scandal affecting and impacting many more children," Mr Cullinane said.
Social Democrats TD Pádraig Rice said his party is supporting the call to conduct a more extensive review, as the existing one was too narrow.
Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger asked whether other unauthorised devices had been used on children which had not been ethically and properly tested.
She said she had been told about urology devices, pegs used on children's bladders which parents said were not ethically checked out and were not recommended.
Ms Coppinger said the information had only been brought to the minister yesterday.
She said it was time for the board of CHI to resign and she said there should be a public inquiry.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the report into hip surgeries at CHI has not been published "because it hasn't been finished. It hasn't been given to me".
She rejected claims of the "Government acting in silence".
"There is an audit being done, a clinical audit being done. It hasn't been completed," she noted, adding that she has "committed to publishing it".
She said that Sinn Féin had been "alluding to a silence or a cover-up".
"It's just factually wrong. And I have to say that," Ms Carroll MacNeill said.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said that she would be happy to have a debate on the report "when it's published".
She also said she is moving an amendment to a Sinn Féin private members' motion on hip surgeries at CHI as "the motion contains details that I can't stand over factually".
"I don't want to do that, but I don't have any alternative in relation to that," she said.
