Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 6, line 31, after “concerned,” to insert the following:“where that woman agreed to participating in the Review of Cervical Screening up to 3 months after the commencement of this Act,”.

This is effectively the same as my Committee Stage amendment. I hope to be able to withdraw it. I would like the Minister, though, if he could, to clarify where we have got to on this. For the benefit of the House, I remind Members that the tribunal covers all the women involved in the CervicalCheck group, that is, the 221+ group. It also covers the additional women who were on the national cancer database, who were not in the CervicalCheck group and who agreed to the review by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, RCOG, in the UK. The group that has been excluded from the review is comprised of the women who were on the national cancer database, who contracted cervical cancer and who for their own reasons declined the audit by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I believe, and I think the Minister shares the belief, that the group of women who declined the RCOG review did so without knowing that they were excluding themselves from the tribunal. It is imperative that they have access to the tribunal, and this amendment speaks to that. The Minister said on Committee Stage that he would look at ways of doing this. I am very open to what his solution is but, ultimately, its result, for me and for Fianna Fáil, needs to be that a mechanism is found for the women who declined the RCOG audit such that they can participate in an independent audit, thereby gaining access to the tribunal. The Minister might address this. We want to hear about the mechanism, but before that comes the principle. Does the Minister believe he has found a way for that group of women to have one more option, time limited, to participate in a review or an audit of their slides, thereby gaining access to the tribunal?

See this speech in context