Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One of the witnesses spoke about the four laboratories in the United States being comparable within certain parameters. Many members have asked questions, so I just want to be clear.

Is Mr. O'Brien telling us that he is happy with the standards of the three or four labs being used - it does not matter to me how many - both American and Irish? As head of the HSE, does he think, not in his personal opinion but from evidence, that they are up to scratch for the provision of this service to the women of Ireland?

I have a second question. Before the 2014 audit that led to the recent findings, I am led to believe that there were two years of audit that were used for education and training purposes. Might Mr O'Brien explain why that happened? When the real audit of real people's data happened in 2014 and this rate of false negatives was identified, did the HSE compare the rates of false negatives and false positives of the four individual labs? That is the first batch of questions. I am sure Mr. Gleeson and Mr. O'Brien can answer those.