⭐ Joshua Younkin ⭐
27 Sept 2026
A solicitor who represents families of children with scoliosis, spina bifida and other issues has warned that if the recommendations of the Government's scoping report on child spinal care is followed "hundreds of families will be excluded".
Raymond Bradley, managing partner of the legal firm Malcomson Law, said the inquiry into child spinal care in Ireland "ought to be about the harm that's occurred to children".... about "the loss of quality of life that has occurred to those children and the irretrievable change of life path for them rather than waiting lists, administrative processes, governance procedures."
He added: "The proposal is that many of the power brokers that ought to be investigated will be excluded as part of the proposed scoping exercise report."
Mr Bradley said that the investigation will be limited to Children's Health Ireland (CHI) if it goes ahead as planned.
"The events that occurred predated CHI... We don't have the Department of Health. We don't have HSE. We don't have the role of HIQA in terms of supervision in relation to these particular healthcare entities.
"We have a very truncated, limited approach to investigation for the purposes of protection of State entities. That is wrong."
Mr Bradley said the families were seeking a tribunal rather than a commission of investigation because tribunals sit in public.
"Legal teams representing families are entitled to ask questions as part of those public hearings," he said.
"Families want a public accountability in terms of the harm that has occurred to their children."
Mr Bradley said that as part of the scoping exercise, it was decided that families wanted a private inquiry process.
"The reality is different," he said, "surely it's a matter for families to decide whether they are seeking anonymity or otherwise."
"It's not a paternalistic type society that we live in.... We're entitled to make those decisions ourselves."
He added that there have previously been public investigations in health areas and anonymity can still be achieved in a tribunal process.
Mr Bradley said he understands concerns that tribunals can be lengthy and costly for the taxpayer.
"Unfortunately, precision in terms of reference, in terms of dates, does not mean that there should be issues excluded from investigation and that is what is occurring here," he said.
"There will be hundreds of children and families excluded by a start date in 2019.
"Even the scoping report itself recognises that there were concerns with waiting list times as in 2017.
"I'm aware of situations that occurred as far back as 2008.
"So this inquiry, if it follows the recommendation in the scoping report, will exclude hundreds of families and that cannot be permissible."
Private commission 'worse than we feared'
In a statement, the Scoliosis Advocacy Network said in their view the scoping report's recommendation to hold a commission of investigation in private rather than a full tribunal in public is "worse than we feared".
The group said it has always put the needs of children "at the centre of our advocacy" and that "any inquiry into these services must do the same".
"What is proposed is extraordinarily narrow. This cannot become an administrative examination of waiting lists, processes and dates. It must examine what actually happened to children.
"The scoliosis crisis did not begin in 2019. Children were already waiting... A waiting list records how long a child waited. It does not record what that wait cost them," the group said, adding the recommendation "is not what we called for".
In a separate statement, the Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Paediatric Advocacy Group said its members are "deeply concerned that what is being proposed falls far short of the comprehensive inquiry families were promised".
"The proposed scope contains significant gaps in both timeframe and clinical focus.
"This is not simply about administration, governance or waiting lists. It is about what happened to children, what harm they experienced, when concerns were known, what action was taken and why those failures were allowed to continue."
In a statement to This Week, the Department of Health said: "The Report on Children's Health Ireland Inquiry into Spina Bifida and Complex Scoliosis Scoping Exercise has now been completed, stakeholders were briefed yesterday, Saturday.
"The report will be published on Monday, and time will be scheduled in the Dáil to discuss the report."