Mr. Tony O'Brien:

I think the Senator ascribes a bit too much total power to me. In fact, there were other experts who supported that process. There was a national cancer screening service board. There was a debate in the Oireachtas and there was ministerial approval but I certainly supported the decision. Contrary to what was said earlier, nobody was forced to resign and there were a number of steps taken. The issues that were raised at that time did not relate to this process, they related to an earlier process. A total of 1,000 slides had been outsourced as part of a catch-up programme in 2006 to 2007 by the HSE which I did not work for at that time. I worked for another organisation. Certain conclusions were being drawn based on that. Those were addressed in a number of ways.